


Expectations

by everandanon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Details in the Notes, Alpha Dean Winchester, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Historical, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Culture Differences, Dubious Consent (due to third-party interference), Eventual Smut, Happy Ending, Hurt Castiel, Implied/Referenced Past Abuse, M/M, Misunderstandings, Omega Castiel (Supernatural), Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Prince Dean Winchester, Sexism, Slow Burn, Strangers to Enemies to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:53:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 418,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22539682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everandanon/pseuds/everandanon
Summary: For centuries, the Winchester princes have taken omegas from the northern town of New Eden to bear the royal heirs before exiling them to the countryside - a punishment for a past dispute caused by the town's strict beliefs. When Prince John marries Lady Mary of Campbell and puts a Queen on the throne, however, most people assume the tradition has been set aside.Thus, it's a complete surprise to Dean when he's sent to New Eden to retrieve the girl they've arranged for.Cas, as a male omega in backward New Eden, has been ostracized and condemned by his town since he presented. To make matters worse? His sister is being given away to the crown prince of Winchester, never to return.But when the morning before the prince's arrival dawns and Anna is nowhere to be found, the town's council decides there’s only one thing for it:They’ll simply have to give himCasinstead.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2823
Kudos: 1715
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warning: Cas, at times, wears dresses and/or traditionally feminine undergarments, due to New Eden’s views about his secondary gender. This is not a sexual thing; rather, this relates to culture differences and misunderstandings (though there is a nod to the wonders of pretty undergarments, a thing that, like all clothing, should be an option for everyone regardless of gender). (On that note, Dean appears in feminine undergarments at some point as well.)
> 
> Additional warning #2: I realize it may not be clear from the summary, but what is happening to Cas (and happened to the New Eden omegas before him, though they are not discussed in detail), is non-con/imprisonment. Cas spends a portion of this story confined to his room with the expectation of eventually bearing heirs and being exiled to a relatively isolated existence in the country. If you're worried about this, more details are in the notes.
> 
> Additional Warning #3: In the first part of this fic, due to a significant misunderstanding, Dean treats Cas very poorly at times, which is especially a problem given Cas's situation at the castle. Further details in the notes if you are concerned about this.
> 
> Additional Warning #4: Backstories for side/background characters later on in the fic are referenced, which include a variety of sensitive topics. More details in the end notes.
> 
> Side pairings: Bobby/Ellen, Anna/Bela, one-sided Samandriel/Cas (Samandriel's feelings are not reciprocated)
> 
> Further details about some of the tags are in the notes, if you have concerns. If I failed to address anything and you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I am [questionableraccoon](https://questionableraccoon.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, if that’s easier.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoy! ♡

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: references to dub/non-con (no actual dub-con, but Cas is expecting Dean to bed him, and he was instructed to cooperate, though this does not happen), gender-related issues (Cas's dress causes a stir, and Cas has internalized a negative perception of his gender), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> **By 'drawers,' I'm referring to some amalgam of (traditionally) women's undergarments through history. Picture some kind of embellished pair of undershorts. Sorry in advance for any confusion!
> 
> Amazingly gorgeous art for some of Cas's clothing in this story, by the also amazing and wonderful [Diminuel](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/), can be found [here](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/post/616048676617535488/diminuel-i-re-read-expectations-by)!!!

In the morning, Anna is gone.

Cas isn’t surprised. Anna has been fighting this for years, ever since her presentation; ever since the council came and told them there would be no Selection this time, because Hester Novak had not paid the debt, after all.

“That was not her,” Cas’s father had argued. “That was the King of Winchester.”

“The reasons do not matter. It was her House’s turn, and it was she who was chosen. Her brother sired no daughters, so hers shall pay the debt instead.”

“And Novak? Will it pay twice?”

“Your House received a bride it should not have. With this, all shall be made equal.”

His father had been silent after that, and Cas, at twelve, had been mildly concerned for the messenger at the door.

But then the door shut, and the messenger went away, and Cas’s mother had gone into her bedroom and closed the door. His father had called Cas away from his perch on the stairs, led him to the yard, and there they chopped wood until the sun went down.

According to Anna, their mother wept for hours.

At the time, Cas understood very little. Only that the Kingdom of Winchester, of which they were grudgingly part, was feared and reviled, a country of heathens led by a wicked tyrant, and their righteous town alone had ever made a stand against it; and every generation, the town paid a price, and that price was a symbol of their faith in and devotion to God, that even in the face of Winchester’s wickedness, they would not be cowed.

Cas is older now, and he knows better. Anna, his mother, and all the girls before them — they’re just a sacrifice, one the town makes to save their own skins.

Of course, Anna knew better, too, and that is why, on the morning of the day before Dean of Winchester is meant to come and collect her, the household awakens to find her gone.

His mother cries this time, as well.

“What will be done to us?” she demands. “To all of us? They’ll destroy the entire _town_ -”

“They will not. We will inform the council, and a substitute will be found.”

Tears well in her eyes.

“There is no substitute. You know that. And what of us? They’ll make us pay. Both our Houses.”

Cas doesn’t wait to hear the rest. Instead, he drifts back to his little nook in the attic and dons his work dress and apron.

It isn’t apathy that drives him; he’s afraid for Anna — though that isn’t necessarily a new feeling — and he’s a little hurt that she left without any kind of goodbye to him, but Cas’s feelings are irrelevant. This, like all things, is beyond his control, so he’ll do what he does best:

He’ll work.

He sees to the cows and pigs and chickens, collects the eggs, then goes to tend the garden before he heads to the fields. He’d prefer to start his day with the field work, before the sun is high in the sky, but he’s forbidden from leaving his parents’ property until it’s full light, so high sun it must be.

Cas is carefully uprooting the ever-tenacious weeds, seemingly sprung up overnight, when he spots it.

There, neatly coiled and cleanly perched atop the dirt next to the cabbage — the _loathsome_ cabbage, which he hardly considers edible enough to be in any god-fearing kitchen garden — is a small silver locket.

He rubs his dirty hands on his work apron and reaches for it, gently unclasping the shiny oval. Inside, there’s a wispy lock of bright red hair, though it was always empty when Anna wore it.

After a moment, he carefully tucks it in his apron pocket and returns to weeding.

It’s not a _goodbye_ , exactly, but it’s something.

It’s a full day of field work. By the time he’s made his way along the crudely-formed path in the woods he always takes (lest he expose himself to the good people of the town and risk infecting them with his _misfortune_ ), Cas is very tired and finally dreading the fallout of Anna’s escape.

He wipes his feet on the mat, unlaces his boots and tucks them beside the kitchen door, and then quietly lets himself in, listening.

Silence greets him.

He’s not stupid enough to call out — excepting any House-wide punishments, it has nothing to do with him, and he’d like to keep it that way — but he does cast his eye toward the closed doors on his way to the attic, listening.

All remains quiet. Cas lets himself into his little room, hanging up his apron and unlacing his dress. He wishes he had enough time to sneak out for a bath in the river, but he’s not quite willing to risk the consequences on a day like today.

Which means he’ll have to wait until _tomorrow._ What Cas wouldn’t give for indoor plumbing, like a traveling salesman once told him they had in the capital. He could have a bath _every day_ instead of fruitlessly trying to paw away the dust and dirt with no more than a damp cloth to aid him. He and Anna had joked that it would be the one perk of being sacrificed to the heathens.

Then again, they’d also joked about her spending confinement in the dungeons and birthing the Winchester spare right there on the gallows; it was anyone’s guess how the omegas sent to Lawrence were kept or if, in the longterm, they were even kept at all.

Cas gives his stained washcloth a reproachful look, then dunks it in a bowl of water.

He’s just re-donning his house dress when he hears the front door open. He makes quick work of the laces, quietly settling on his bed to wait. With any luck, he’s been forgotten for the day, and he’s not about to do anything to jeopardize his peace if that’s the case.

It is not. Cas sits no more than three minutes before the attic door is pushed open, startling him. His mother appears, looking pale and strange.

“Mother,” he greets her, sliding off the thin mattress and dutifully kneeling, eyes lowered.

“Stand, Castiel,” she instructs, and he obeys, only to have a dress thrust into his arms.

He stares at it, uncomprehending.

“I don’t need a new dress.” Not that it’s his choice; he eyes her uneasily, waiting for some reproach.

She presses her lips together.

“You do. You’ll need to adjust it, to fit you.”

None of his dresses really fit him, most of them short in the hem and deliberately too big in the bodice. In light of that, the instructions are somewhat alarming.

“Alright,” he agrees, dropping his eyes back to the dress. It’s clearly much nicer than anything he owns, in both color and fabric, and he cannot, for the life of him, think why anyone would want him to have it.

Could it be a castoff? Cas has to work separately from the other field workers, but he takes his lunch in a shady spot not too far from one of the fences where they like to sit, and he usually eavesdrops; he knows Adler’s daughter was bedridden with some awful illness for a full month, and according to them, she’s half the size she started out.

Still, despite paying Cas’s parents for his labor, Adler has as much disdain for him as any of the townspeople. Cas can’t imagine him or his daughter keeping him in mind, ill-fitting dresses or not.

“See to it that you finish before bed,” his mother says, and then heads back down the stairs.

He realizes, then, how odd it was of her to come up in the first place.

Cas is halfway through the alterations, squinting in the dim light of the candle, before he figures out what the dress is for.

Today, Dean is going to meet the mother of his children.

“Aw, no, brother. We’ve been over this; you can’t be thinkin’ of her like that.”

Dean scowls, grip on the reins tightening.

“Look, man, whether she sticks around or not, she’s housing them _in her body_ for _nine fucking months._ She’s their mother, in some way, whether we banish her to the Gardens afterward or not.”

Benny sighs.

“I ain’t arguin’ with ya. Just sayin’ — be easier for you if you kept some distance from it all, alright?”

_Easier,_ he says. As if any part of this whole clusterfuck isn’t going to be awful, no matter what he does.

As if he can “keep some distance” from the _mother of his goddamn children._

“It ain’t normal,” he mutters. “If a kid’s got two live parents and neither of them are complete shit, they deserve to see ‘em.”

“Again,” Benny says slowly, giving Dean a sidelong glance. “Not arguin’. Just sayin’. You can’t change it, so don’t go makin’ it worse for yourself. Won’t help you and it won’t help her.”

Benny’s right, and he knows it, but Dean can’t help himself. He feels the way he feels, and the way he feels is _shitty_ about the whole damn thing.

It’s not that Dean didn’t know about the tradition, but since his dad put his foot down and married his mom, the first Queen of Winchester in centuries, Dean figured they were done with it. He figured, once he was old enough, he’d fall in love — or something close enough — and get married and put another Queen on the throne, because _of course_ that’s how they did things, now.

Apparently, Dean was wrong.

_Apparently,_ nobody felt like he should know that until two weeks ago, and his stomach hasn’t felt right since.

“They could look just like her,” Dean mutters. “Could have her goddamn eyes and not even know it. But _I_ would. Gonna spend the rest of my life looking at them and knowing she’s rotting in a mansion in the country, with no fucking clue that they _have_ her goddamn eyes.”

“Brother,” Benny says, pained. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

“ _Me_? I’m not doing anything to myself, Benny! It’s the council who has their heads up their asses, and now me and some poor girl are getting screwed.” Dean narrows his eyes at the road ahead. “ _Literally._ ”

He gets a helpless look in return.

“It is what it is, chief. Nothin’ you can do about it.”

And isn’t that the kicker? Dean’s going to be the fucking _King_ someday, but right now he’s just another piece of property. By the time he actually _can_ do something about it — even if he pisses off the whole damn council in the process — it’ll be too late.

“I don’t wanna be a single dad,” he mumbles. “Don’t want them growing up without their mom. Not when there’s no reason for it.”

Dean didn’t have two parents for long, but when he did, he knew he was loved and he knew they were happy. He knows Ellen loves Jo enough for a whole fucking platoon of parents, knows Bobby just about matches it, but if Jo could have her dad back and keep all three, no way in hell would she say no.

“You’ll be enough. Anybody who knows you knows that.”

“It’s not about being _enough,_ Benny. It’s about — about them being able to have _more,_ and me throwing that chance away for dumbass reasons like this.”

Besides, Dean’s actually not at all sure he’ll be enough, and if he didn’t have Sammy and Bobby and Ellen and the rest of his family, he’s not sure he could keep the panic at bay long enough to make those heirs in the first place.

As it is, he’s worried about it.

“You’re gonna give ‘em everything you can, brother,” Benny says quietly. “This ain’t one of those things. Both you and the girl just have to live with that.”

There’s not much else Dean can say. Benny squeezes his shoulder, and on they ride.

It’s almost afternoon when they reach the town. The place is eerily quiet, though it’s larger than Dean was expecting; there’s not a single soul in the street as they ride in, and half of Dean wonders if the plague came through or something.

They’re half a mile in when another rider approaches, regarding them with suspicious eyes.

“You’re from the capital?” he prompts.

Beside Dean, Benny frowns.

“You’re addressing the Crown Prince of Winchester. So you know.”

The man’s lip curls, humorless.

“Your Highness. Follow me.”

He turns, Benny scowling at his back. Dean, for his part, is just tired.

“Let’s go,” he mumbles, and the party moves forward.

They wind through the center of the town and down the road, where the buildings become sparser, and about ten minutes later, the man stops in front of a tidy, respectable-looking two-story house.

It looms in the late morning sun, throwing shadows on the neat dirt path leading up to it, and though it should be a fairly plain, innocuous sort of structure, Dean can’t help but find it a kind of menacing.

“I’ll let them know you’ve arrived.”

The man dismounts, stalking briskly to the door, and raps twice. Behind him, Dean and Benny exchange a look, and after a moment, Dean slips off his own horse. He should at least greet the girl properly.

Although, according to Dad and the council, part of the point of the trip is for Dean to ride in looking all authoritative and foreboding, to whisk away one of the town’s daughters and remind them just how much Winchester is to be feared.

Still, he’s a little uncomfortable with the idea of just throwing this chick over his saddle and riding off with her.

Cautiously, he starts up the path, Benny in tow and the rest of the guard hanging back. He comes to a stop about ten feet from the man, and a few moments later, the door opens.

A dark-haired man steps out.

“Novak. The Prince of Winchester has arrived.”

The new man glances behind him, nodding stiffly, and then a blonde woman appears, mouth pressed into a thin line.

Dean takes her in, heart thumping steadily in his chest.

She’s not bad-looking, not at all, and the unfriendly expression is probably fair, under the circumstances, but . . .

“Huh. She, uh, she looks older than I expected,” he comments quietly.

Benny huffs a laugh.

“Reckon that’s her mother.”

“Oh. Yeah, that — that makes sense.”

The dark-haired man opens his mouth to speak.

“Castiel,” he intones, and then there’s movement behind him. Dean straightens, trying and failing not to hold his breath because _f_ _uck_ Benny’s logic; this is the _mother of his children._

A third man steps into the light, dark hair fucked six ways to Sunday, head bowed and eyes lowered.

Dean can’t help himself. He stares.

“Why the hell is that dude wearing a dress?” he mutters.

Benny snorts, then quickly covers with a cough; the new man’s chin lifts slightly, eyes flickering toward the two of them, and this time Dean stares for a different reason.

That reason is _blue,_ very, very blue. Something strange and wistful stirs in him, even though now is absolutely not the fucking time, and that something has his eyes drinking in this guy’s face, all dark lashes and cheekbones and a wide, soft-looking mouth and that _impossible_ pair of blue eyes, staring right into Dean’s soul.

A trick of the light, he thinks dumbly, licking his lips.

(Blue eyes track the movement, head canting.)

Yep, definitely something hinky with the light. Nobody’s got eyes like that.

“This is Castiel,” the first man says, and after a moment, Dean remembers to tear his gaze away, face warming. He nods.

“H-hi, uh, Castiel. Nice to meet you.”

There’s another extremely suspicious cough from beside him, and when he throws an irritated glance at Benny, his friend just raises his eyebrows.

He looks back, only to find everyone is staring at him like he’s grown three heads.

Except for Castiel, that is. Castiel just looks puzzled.

“Hello. It’s . . . nice to meet you, as well.”

There’s something cautious, uncertain about it, and it makes Dean unhappy for about two seconds before he remembers that blue-eyed dudes in dresses are actually not why he’s here, and this guy is probably hardcore judging him for the fucked up reason he _is_.

“Anyway,” the first man says, faintly disapproving. “Castiel will be going with you, as Winchester demands.”

Dean blinks at him, confused. Behind him, there’s a sharp murmur among the guard, and at the door, the blonde woman stares hard at the ground, expression vaguely pained.

“Dean?” Benny prompts quietly, and finally, Dean understands.

“Oh,” he says. “Uh. That — I thought your council mentioned a, uh, a young woman.”

Castiel’s eyes drop at that, chin tucking in, and it’s so awful Dean sort of wishes he could lie down on the ground and just have the guard’s horses trample him to death.

It’s not like he hates the idea of taking Castiel home with him, so long as Castiel was okay with that. It’s just that he sort of needs _heirs,_ and for that, he needs—

“Castiel is an omega,” the man says, a touch of defiance in his tone. “He will provide your heirs.”

Again, Dean takes a moment to process, eyes flying back to Castiel.

An _omega._ The guy is an omega — only the second male one Dean’s ever met — and apparently, he’s going to provide Dean’s heirs.

Dean has no idea how to feel about that. He knows what he was thinking two minutes ago, and he doesn’t kid himself it does anything but complicate the issue.

Anyway — the bigger issue, at the moment, is that Dean doesn’t know what to _do_ about that. This wasn’t what they arranged, he knows that much — there was definitely a girl, at some point — and his Dad’s advisers didn’t exactly prepare him for alternative outcomes.

He glances toward Benny, who looks equally at a loss.

“Okay. That’s . . . well, that doesn’t exactly answer my question.” Honestly, he’s not sure whether to push back on the issue or not; he gets the sense there’s something kind of weird going on, and he’s hard-pressed to believe there weren’t _any_ female omegas available, but — what difference does it really make? Dean needs heirs and Winchester needs to terrorize the town of New Eden into staying in line. Castiel’s primary gender doesn’t really change anything.

The important question is — will his Dad and the council care, anyway?

“The young woman previously discussed has met with an unfortunate accident. We offer Castiel in her stead.”

_Unfortunate accident?_

Dean kind of wants to ask, but a part of him is afraid to.

“Oh. I’m . . . sorry to hear that.”

Castiel’s shoulders twitch, and Dean swears he sees him glance up in his peripheral, but when he looks over, his head is bowed, gaze on the ground.

He hesitates, studying the top of that dark head, kind of wishing Castiel would look up again, give Dean some indication what he was thinking about all of this.

Again, though — not that it matters.

Dean considers it all for a moment, then nods.

“Alright. This is . . . fine, I guess.” He looks to Benny, who shrugs. “Yeah. This is fine.”

The first two men and the woman seem to relax, at that. Castiel, for his part, is completely still.

“Castiel,” the man who answered the door says, and Castiel comes forward, baring his throat.

Dean just sort of stares at him, uncertain.

Benny coughs.

“Think maybe you’re supposed to scent him,” he mumbles. After a moment’s hesitation, conscious of everyone’s eyes on him — except Castiel, who’s looking carefully down and off to the side — Dean awkwardly moves forward, ducking his head to take a brief sniff before he retreats again. This close, it’s clear that Castiel’s roughly Dean’s size, give or take a few inches and some thickness in the torso, and usually the only time Dean gets this close to a guy his size, he’s fighting them.

(Not that there weren’t a couple nights at the tavern, here and there, but that’s pretty unusual, too.)

His retreat isn’t _quite_ as hasty as he means it to be, if only because Castiel smells holy- _shit-_ really-fucking-good. In fact, instinct very unhelpfully suggests he bury his nose in Castiel’s neck and chill out there for a while, or forever, no big deal, but sense prevails and Dean manages to tear himself away without looking too bizarre.

(He hopes.)

Dean straightens, coughing into his hand.

“Okay, uh. Thank you, you — you smell very nice.”

All three people by the door give Dean a bemused look. Castiel’s brow twitches, but he continues staring at the ground.

“As you can see,” the first man says. “He is an omega.”

Dean blinks.

“Yeah? I mean, yes, he is. That’s good. That, uh. That works.”

He thinks he catches a flash of relief on the blonde woman’s face, but he can’t be sure.

“Then you have what you came here for,” the man says, with a satisfied nod.

“I . . . I guess?” He glances back toward Castiel, who’s still looking towards his shoes. “Uh. Do you, uh, do you have . . . stuff? That you wanna take?”

There’s a long silence, and then Castiel’s chin jerks up, blue eyes surprised.

“I — are you asking me?”

Dean startles a little; the voice, low and rough, isn’t what Dean was expecting.

He doesn’t hate it.

“Uh. Yeah?”

Castiel looks uneasy, glancing back to the others.

“No.”

“Really? You don’t—” Dean gets a sharp look, then, and promptly cuts off. He swallows. “Right. Okay. Then . . . if you’re ready to go . . .”

Castiel nods, eyes dropping back to the ground.

“As you wish, alpha.”

Which — just no. Dean tries not to make a face.

“Dean. Just — just call me Dean.”

Benny looks at him, and Dean shrugs back guiltily. He knows this is supposed to be an assertion of dominance, in some ways, but come _on._ Designation titles are just _weird,_ and this whole situation is bad enough without them.

Blue eyes flicker back up to Dean’s face, inscrutable, before they drop again.

“As you wish. Dean.”

Dean frowns.

Nice as his name sounds in that voice — he feels a little like he’s being mocked.

“Right. Awesome.” He rubs the back of his neck, discomfited. “Do you wanna — you know. Say goodbye, or anything?”

Castiel stills.

And then he nods.

“If I may.”

“Well, yeah, of course.”

Again, Benny shoots him an exasperated look, but this is where Dean definitely draws the line. No way in hell is he going to deprive the guy of one last hug from his mother.

After all, Dean knows what _he_ would do for one last hug from his mom, so yeah. Not happening.

He watches as Castiel turns back, moving forward — and then walks right past the others, around the house.

Okay. So maybe those _aren’t_ his parents.

They all stand in cold silence for several minutes until he returns.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, eyes still lowered, and Dean nods.

“Uh. You’re welcome.” He shifts, uncertain. “Do you ride?”

The council had said they didn’t let omegas ride horses in New Eden, but Dean found that hard to believe.

Castiel shakes his head.

“It’s not allowed, so I never learned. Apologies.”

“Oh.” Dean clears his throat, or tries to, anyway; his heart’s making a bid for residence in it. “Guess you, uh. You’ll have to ride with me, then.”

He does his best to say it casual, like it’s no big deal. And it’s not. It’s just Castiel, with his insane blue eyes and sweet, rainy scent, crammed onto a tiny saddle with Dean for the next eight fucking hours.

Castiel nods, so calmly Dean almost believes it.

“Of course, Dean.”

After a moment, Dean forces himself to turn, leading Castiel back to the horse. Once there, he offers him a hand, which the other man just stares at for a moment before finally placing his own in its grasp.

“Just . . . put your foot in the stirrup, and then, uh, up you go,” Dean tells him, heart pounding unnecessarily.

Castiel hesitates, then does as instructed, and though Dean prepares himself to catch him in case he slips, it’s not necessary. Castiel is surprisingly graceful.

Unfortunately, Castiel is also wearing a dress, which means he’s perched side-saddle rather than astride.

“Hey, uh, I forgot to ask. Why are you wearing a dress?”

The question gets a blank look for several long seconds. Then Castiel’s expression turns appalled, cheeks darkening.

“Are you suggesting you’d have me go without?”

“Well, no, not if you like ‘em. You can wear whatever you want, it’s just — it’s kind of unusual.”

Dark brows climb higher.

“I’m not sure how things are in the capital, but in New Eden our omegas are clothed. And I’d prefer to stay that way.”

It takes Dean a few seconds of confusion before he gets it.

“ _Oh._ Oh, God, _no,_ we don’t — our omegas are clothed, too, it’s just — you — well, you’re a _dude._ ”

Castiel’s brow furrows, eyes searching.

“I don’t understand.”

“I meant — look,” Dean tries, running a tired hand through his hair. “In the capital, men don’t wear dresses. Only women do.”

Castiel just blinks down at him.

“Alright. New Eden is the same. But — I’m an _omega._ ” He says it slow, like Dean might have forgotten this fact sometime in the last two minutes.

Dean lifts his brows.

“Yeah, but you’re a _man_. And men wear pants. Actually, women do, too, if they’re going on horseback. Omegas or not.”

“Oh.” Castiel looks back at him, clearly at a loss. “Well, I don’t have any pants.”

As far as Dean can tell, Castiel doesn’t have _anything,_ besides the dress he’s wearing.

“That’s fine. We’ll be in a carriage tomorrow, since there should be good roads from the inn. But when we get back to Lawrence — I’ll get you some clothes. And you should learn to ride.

Castiel lightly touches his skirts, frowning a little.

“Alright. Whatever you wish.”

It’s said quietly, subdued, and it leaves a foul taste in Dean’s mouth.

“I — I mean, you can pick your own stuff, I just meant—” He cuts off, taking a deep breath. “We’ll, uh, we’ll figure it out later, okay? For now — do you wanna ride in front of me, or behind?”

Castiel hesitates.

“What’s simpler?”

“Uh. Behind, probably? You’ll have to hold onto me, though.”

Castiel nods.

“Alright.” He shifts slightly, and Dean takes that as his cue to mount.

_No big deal,_ he reminds himself, and hoists himself up.

There’s a pause once he’s settled at the front, and then a pair of arms tentatively circle his waist. Dean takes a deep breath.

_No_ _pe, no big deal at all._

“Don’t worry about me,” he tells Castiel, turning his head slightly. “Hold on as tight as you need to.”

“Alright,” Castiel says again, but his grip barely changes. Dean figures it’ll have to do for now.

With a nod at the rest of the guard, he carefully nudges his horse into motion.

Sometime around mid-afternoon, Castiel starts nodding off, hold on Dean’s waist slackening and forehead bumping against Dean’s back before he jerks upright, apologizing.

After the third time, Dean slows his horse and turns around halfway. Castiel is carefully leaned back, his eyes blinking tiredly as they track Dean’s movement.

“Apologies, Alpha,” he mutters, and Dean nods. He’ll work on the name thing when Castiel isn’t about to pass out.

“It’s fine. Late night?”

Castiel squints.

“I mean — were you up late? Or — do you have trouble sleeping?”

As soon as he says it, Dean wants to smack himself, because _of fucking course_ Castiel probably had trouble sleeping, given what was going to happen to him today. If anything, Dean’s shocked the guy didn’t just run off in the night, everything else be damned.

Castiel looks down, rueful.

“My dress needed alterations. It was some time before I slept.”

“Your dress?” Dean echoes, then realizes. “Oh. Well, it — it looks really nice?”

To be honest, Dean was kind of busy processing the whole storybook-beautiful omega coming home with him thing — as well as the fact that he was wearing a dress at all. He didn’t exactly give the dress a lot of thought, especially since it’s like a hundred years out of fashion and extensively covers anything that might be of interest. Still, Castiel is . . . well, _beautiful,_ and he’d probably look great in a mis-sewn burlap sack, so Dean’s technically telling the truth.

Castiel tilts his head, briefly meeting Dean’s eyes,.

“Thank you.”

Dean nods awkwardly.

“Sure.” He hesitates — _no big deal, no big deal_. “If you’re tired, you can — you know, you can lean on me.”

Castiel tenses.

“That seems — precarious.”

“We’re not moving that fast. I promise not to let you fall.”

He almost makes a joke about being kind of screwed if Castiel dies on the way home, but stops himself just in time.

“I’m fine,” Castiel insists, firm. “Thank you.”

Which — that’s fair. Dean’d probably feel the same way in Castiel’s shoes, no matter how tired he was.

“Sure.” He shrugs, turning back to the road. “Feel free to change your mind, though.”

Castiel doesn’t answer that, and they continue on in silence.

A little while later, his arms loosen, and then a warm weight settles against Dean’s back.

Castiel’s soft, dark hair tickles against his neck, and Dean steadily rides on, trying not to smile.

“I apologize for falling asleep.”

“I told you, it’s fine. Better than, actually. This way I don’t feel so bad about waiting till night to stop.”

Cas doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just nods shortly, concentrating on the bread and cheese he’s been given.

They’ve stopped to rest the horses and have a snack, and Cas was deeply embarrassed to find himself drooling on the back of the prince’s tunic when the other man gently shook him awake. As much as he understands, logically, that Winchester wants Castiel for his womb and little else, he can’t help but be self-conscious. He doesn’t remember the last time he was around so many people, let alone strangers, and he knows they were all expecting someone small and lovely and _female_ , like Anna.

He knows the _princ_ _e_ was expecting it, and while there’s a part of him that’s perversely satisfied, thwarting the man who would have taken her away, another part just feels _bad._

The truth is, he’d been doubtful, even as he’d finished altering the dress, if there was actually a point in doing so.

“They’re shameless, in the capital,” Malachi had insisted. “The prince won’t care what he’s bedding, so long as it gets him his heirs.”

As the ‘what’ in question, Cas hadn’t been so sure. Shameless or not, Cas thought the prince would care very much if the thing he was bedding was something like _Cas._ At best, he’d expected the prince to take one look at him and demand a proper omega, as promised.

At worst, Cas had thought he might be killed.

But no; the prince seems relatively unconcerned which, while surprising, Cas supposes makes sense. Cas _is_ a tool; he might not be particularly beautiful — he is a male omega, after all — but any children he bears are unlikely to be _ugly._

(Though — objectively speaking — Prince Dean is handsome enough that it shouldn’t be a concern, either way. Not that Cas was noticing, because people like Cas shouldn’t notice such things, especially not about people like Dean.)

Still, the prince _will_ have to bed him — numerous times — to produce those children. Cas finds it difficult to believe he’s comfortable with that.

Then again — he’d been to told to turn over, keep quiet, and hold still for the prince when the time comes; if Dean can’t really see him, maybe it honestly doesn’t matter.

Anyway . . . whatever the prince’s reasoning, it doesn’t change the fact that Cas is utterly unprepared for this situation. In light of that, he can’t help it; he’s just _uncomfortable_.

“Did you get enough to eat?”

It takes him a moment to realize he’s being addressed; every time Dean asks him a question, he’s startled.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“We’ll have dinner when we stop for the night. There’s a town, and the inn is pretty nice.”

“Alright.” Cas isn’t sure why the prince is telling him any of this. He can offer neither input nor protest, regardless of the plan.

And while in some ways, it’s vaguely nice to know what to expect from the evening, it’s also a reminder of what he ought to expect from the night.

He dismisses the thought, keeping his eyes on the ground and awaiting further instruction. Running is pointless, for him, and what’s more, he’d rather not cause trouble. It’s anyone’s guess, what’s done with the omegas after they’ve served their purpose, but there’s no sense giving the prince cause for any kind of special retaliation. And while Cas would be lying if he said he held any particular fondness for the townspeople — he’s barely interacted with them for years, after all — he’d feel a little bad if they all suffered for something he did.

And actually, if he’s very good, he might even be looked upon favorably. Comfortable exile is probably too much to hope for, but even a _quick_ death is preferable to some fates.

Only time will tell.

“So, uh, were you comfortable sleeping like that, or do you wanna try and ride in front?”

Cas frowns at the prince, forgetting his line of thought entirely.

“I was fine.”

“Okay. I just thought, if you did wanna nap a little more, you won’t have to worry about holding on.”

“I thought you said it was simpler if I rode behind.”

Dean shrugs, scratching his neck.

“Not by much. I’d rather you be comfortable.”

Cas tries and fails not to give him a suspicious look.

“I rested enough. Thank you.”

“Sure.”

Dean stands, dusting off his pants, gaze averted.

“I’ll, uh. Go see how the horses are doing.”

Cas watches him go, then looks back down at the small blanket he’s sitting on, prepared to wait.

It was a nice gesture, he supposes; as much time as he spent on the dress, he would have been a little put out to get it dirty this fast. It’s the nicest thing he’s ever worn, even if he doesn’t care for the reason behind it.

Actually, the prince has put forth a number of nice gestures. It’s his motives which elude Cas, and that frustrates him.

As he waits, he can feel eyes on him; the prince’s guard has been staring at him on and off their entire ride, and it does nothing to ease his sense of shame. While Winchester prohibits the killing of male omegas and female alphas upon their presentation, Cas can’t imagine either is commonplace. In fact, there may be other places in Winchester, besides New Eden, where they resent the rule.

He wonders if that’s what the guard might be thinking, as they stare; that something so disgusting and unnatural should be put to death.

A shadow falls over him, and he tenses, glancing up.

“Sorry about them,” one of Dean’s guard says, blue eyes apologetic as he takes a seat a little distance from Cas. “They’re jus’ curious. They don’t mean you any harm.”

“I’m sure.” He isn’t, not at all.

“I’m Benny,” the man offers, lifting a hand in a slight wave. “Dean’s right hand.”

“Castiel.”

“Pleasure to meet you.”

Cas hesitates.

“Likewise.”

It’s a lie, and he can tell by the other man’s wince that it’s obvious.

“Sorry,” Benny mumbles, then clears his throat. “Pardon my askin’, but to be honest, I’m a little curious, myself. Why the dress?”

Cas stiffens.

“In New Eden, omegas wear dresses.”

“But you’re a fella.”

“As the prince has informed me,” Cas says dryly, and Benny looks sheepish.

“Sorry. Just — ain’t somethin’ we see every day, in Lawrence.”

“Yes, well, the prince may have me dressed however he pleases, but for now, this is what I have.”

“Right, right. Well, Dean’ll get you whatever you like, once we’re home, but in the future, for ridin’, it might be best if you wear pants.”

“So he told me.”

“If it ain’t comfortable though, just tell ‘im. We might gawk a bit, but if you like your dresses, Dean won’t care one way or the other.”

Cas nods. This, actually, makes sense; if Dean cared, he wouldn’t have accepted Cas in the first place.

“Alright,” Dean announces then, striding into view. “Horses are ready to go. Everyone pack up.”

Benny shoots Cas a small smile, and then stands, joining the others. Dean comes over and offers Cas a hand.

“Do you need to, uh. Relieve yourself, or anything?”

“Oh.” Cas grimaces. “Yes. I should.”

The last thing he wants is to ask the entire party to stop and wait while he does so in another hour.

“Alright. Looks like they’re all headed that way, so we’ll go over here. I’ll, uh. Keep watch, I guess.”

Cas stares.

“Is that . . . is that really necessary?”

“Uh? Yeah? If I don’t, one of these jackasses might wander over and startle you or something.”

It takes Cas a moment to understand, and when he does, his cheeks heat at his mistake.

“Oh. You meant — oh. Of course. Thank you.”

Cas handles his business as quickly as possible, for once grateful to be a man. It’s hard to imagine feeling _more_ uncomfortable than he already does, but if he had to maneuver into a squat while trying to manage both his skirts and the uneven terrain — with Dean standing half a dozen yards away and probably able to _hear_ him — he’s sure he could manage it.

Once he’s done, they return to the clearing, where the horses have been brought back from the stream.

“You sure you don’t want to ride in front, just in case?” Dean asks, holding out a hand for support, and Cas hesitates.

“Actually — I think I will.” Cas has no idea how long the whole bedding process takes, but just in case the answer is ‘a long time’, he’d rather not feel dead on his feet for a second day running. It may be wise to try and sleep a little more now, just in case.

“Alright. I should maybe get on first, then.” Dean mounts, then reaches for Cas, helping to pull him up into the saddle.

It is only at this point that Cas realizes the folly of his decision; to handle the reins, the prince must basically wrap his arms around Cas, and the saddle is already small for two grown men. Cas is effectively boxed in, Dean warm and solid against him, around him.

He doesn’t remember the last time he was this close to someone. Anna had to be sneaky about her hugs, and they rarely lasted more than a few seconds.

_T_ _his_ feels altogether different.

He’s not sure how long passes before the prince suddenly coughs.

(Cas can _feel_ it.)

“Sorry. Uh. You good?” he asks, and Cas nods, staring blankly at the road before him.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Awesome.” Dean turns, gesturing to the guard to begin moving, and then settles back in, “Uh. Just — just let me know if you need anything.”

Cas isn’t sure what he means by that — they’re on a horse, so both Cas’s needs and Dean’s ability to meet them are somewhat limited — but his brain has become somewhat fuzzy and Dean said it right into his ear and after a long moment, he decides he’s not going to ask.

“Alright.”

They ride no more than twenty minutes, Cas tensely perched in front, before Dean clears his throat.

“You can, uh, you know, lean into me. Might be more comfortable.”

In some ways, yes, but in other ways, not at all.

In fact, Cas is not entirely sure he’ll be _able_ to sleep, like this. There was something vastly more impersonal about Dean’s back, though he had tried to sit away from that, too. This — this almost feels like an _embrace._

Which is ridiculous. The prince is not trying to — to _hug_ him. This is just an unfortunate seating arrangement which has resulted in Cas halfway resting against a warm, broad chest, equally warm, sturdy arms practically clasped around him.

And _yet_.

It’s a few moments before he realizes he hasn’t answered Dean, is still glowering at the road, trying to stave off the festering panic.

_Unnecessary_ panic. He’s being _missish,_ is what he’s being. It is not an embrace, no matter how intimate it feels, and either way, he and the prince will _actually_ be intimate later tonight.

This awkward not-embrace is sure to seem laughable in comparison.

No, he needs to approach this practically, as he does all things; and practicality demands he get some sleep.

“Alright,” he says decisively, and settles back against Dean with perhaps a bit more force than is required.

Dean wheezes a cough, adjusting his arms to accommodate the unomegalike breadth of Cas’s shoulders, and nods.

“A-awesome,” he mumbles, a huff against the shell of Cas’s ear, and on they ride.

Surprisingly, Cas falls asleep within the hour, pleasantly warm and unconcerned about falling off the horse.

Dean might be focused on guiding the horse through a rougher patch of forest trail, but he can _feel_ Benny smirking at him.

“Shut up,” he mutters, wincing as the horse moves into the decline and Castiel is jostled in his arms.

“Sh, your highness, don’t wanna wake the poor guy.”

Honestly, Castiel has proven better at sleeping mostly upright on a horse than anyone Dean’s ever met, but that doesn’t mean he won’t wake up if Benny keeps being an ass and Dean has to start throwing things at him.

“Right, so _be quiet._ ”

Benny just shakes his head, chuckling to himself, and Dean carefully keeps still, even though he wants to turn and glare at him. Castiel’s head is halfway tucked in the crook of Dean’s neck, and if Dean so much as twists one way or the other, he’ll unsettle him.

It’s sort of . . . _distracting_. Honest to God, Dean was just thinking of Castiel’s comfort, and even though he knew it’d be a little awkward, having Castiel practically sitting in his lap, he didn’t know it’d be like _this._ Castiel is warm and solid and even though he’s kind of big to try and maneuver around, he doesn’t _not_ feel nice in Dean’s arms. To complicate things further, his scent is kind of rainy and sweet, like a cool, early spring day, and tucked right underneath Dean’s nose like that, it’s hard not to notice.

And even though Dean knows what they went and collected Castiel for in the first place, he feels pretty damn guilty for all the noticing he’s been doing since Castiel first came outside in New Eden. If anything, Castiel’s reason for being here makes him feel even _worse_ about it.

The point is, he’s conflicted, and Benny is unhelpful, and thank God Castiel is riding sidesaddle because Dean thinks if they tried to sit completely chest to back, he might have some trouble getting his arms all the way around Castiel to hold the reins.

Which he figures is half of why Benny’s so amused; they probably make a ridiculous sight, Castiel with his soldier’s shoulders and woman’s dress, and Dean, big even for an alpha, carefully maneuvering the reins around him; and all of it on a single horse.

Dean grimaces sympathetically at Idunn; he brought his brother’s horse deliberately, since it had been suggested the omega wouldn’t be able to ride, but he’d had an average-sized woman in mind when he pictured sharing. Castiel has that lean, fine-boned look to him, but he’s still as big as some alphas Dean knows (if way more attractively proportioned). Even Sammy’s enormous pony (and it _does_ still look like a pony, no matter how big it gets) becomes a little small when you’re talking about two men this size.

Fortunately, Dean arranged for a carriage to take them the rest of the way from the town, where the roads can handle it. He’s not sure Idunn could make the entire trip like this, and he’s not mean enough to try it.

“Shouldn’t be more than another hour,” Benny calls quietly, and Dean twitches a hand to let him know he heard. Castiel’s been out cold for the last two hours, and while Dean’s a little worried about it, the guy’s breathing seems normal and his color looks alright. And he _did_ say he was up late, getting his dress ready.

And actually, Dean’s kind of curious about that. It can’t be his only dress, if it didn’t fit him before last night, and yet he doesn’t have any luggage. Also, given the poorly veiled combination of fear and contempt they’d been greeted with, he’s not sure why they’d have Castiel go through any special effort to look pretty for him. Staying up all night squinting at a needle and thread seems like a _lot_ of special effort, to Dean — but for what purpose?

Dean gives the sleeping man a sidelong look, thoughtful. Man or not, it’s kind of hard to believe there was anyone more beautiful than Castiel in the town, even though beauty is one of the things New Eden omegas are known for. In fact, as many people as Dean’s met in his lifetime, Castiel is probably one of the most beautiful among them; if someone tried to say he _wasn’t_ the best-looking omega in town, Dean actually _wouldn’t_ believe it.

Which — offering the prince the most beautiful omega in the town, and that omega putting in all that effort to look his best for Dean?

It doesn’t exactly seem like a normal response to what’s effectively a punishment — unless, of course, you have an ulterior motive.

Dean studies Castiel, albeit from a kind of awkward angle, taking in the fine sweep of dark lashes, the sharp jaw and cheekbones, the wide, soft mouth that invites all kinds of guilty fantasy (never mind the big blue eyes when he’s awake). Dean might not turn into a _complete_ fool over a pretty face, but he’s clearly not immune. If there is some hidden goal at play here, he can see how the townspeople took one look at Castiel and decided he was their best bet at making it happen.

And that’s fair; Dean feels really weird about finding Castiel attractive, under the circumstances, but he’d be lying if it wasn’t also a tiny bit of a relief. Which is why he feels so weird; it just seems _wrong_ to feel better about things when he knows how much Castiel must be dreading them.

Still. No matter how gorgeous Castiel is, or how bad Dean feels about the whole awful situation, he’s not about to let himself be seduced into going along with any kind of rebellious plot from New Eden.

He gives his unconscious companion a sympathetic look, and gently guides the horse along, secure in the knowledge that he has nothing to fear.

“Castiel?”

The voice doesn’t belong to either one of his parents, so Cas is tempted to tell them to go away, because he’s having a very nice nap in some warm, _extremely_ nice-smelling woods, and he was up all night altering a dress just so he could be be sacrificed to Winchester in the morning.

He bites his tongue, forcing himself to crack one eye open — and finds himself staring at someone’s faintly stubbled jaw.

Not _someone’s;_ Prince Dean’s.

Cas lurches forward, blinking in the dusky evening light. They’re in a town, and now that he’s awake and can hear the leisurely bustle of the street, he’s shocked he slept through any of it.

“Sorry,” he mutters, carefully tilting away from the prince. He tries not to mourn the loss of heat. “I must have slept for a long time.”

The prince shrugs, studying him.

“A few hours. Kind of amazing. You must really have been tired.”

“Yes.” He was. His right sleeve is hopelessly rumpled and deflated, having been caught between him and the prince, but he remade the bodice with truly incredible result, in his opinion, and even after a day’s worth of travel, sleeping on a horse, Cas is confident he looks better than he ever has.

Which is still probably not very good, given what he is to begin with, but still — small victories, as Anna would say.

Besides; it’s enabled him to sleep through most of the awkward journey, and even if he knows he just has to lie still for the prince, Cas would rather be alert. A part of him wonders if it would be better, if he was just unconscious for the ordeal, but the idea of the prince using his body while he was unawares still makes him more uncomfortable than the thought of being awake to endure it.

“The inn’s just down the road. We’ll wash up and then grab something to eat. Do you, uh, have any allergies we should know about?”

Cas stares back at him, bemused.

“Allergies?”

“You know. Stuff if you eat, you get really sick?”

“Oh.” He considers this. “Cabbage.”

Admittedly, he’s not sure if what happens technically qualifies as ‘really sick,’ but the prince has no way of knowing that, so he might as well.

“Cabbage,” Dean repeats, then nods. “Okay. We’ll make sure you’re not given anything with cabbage.”

Cas does his best to conceal his smugness.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” The corners of Dean’s mouth lift. “I do the same for my brother.”

“Does he also have . . . allergies?”

“Nope, but it makes him unbearably gassy, so we keep it away from him.”

Cas can’t help himself. He lets out a snort of amusement, not expecting it.

His eyes fly to Dean’s in panic, just as the prince’s do the same.

“Sorry,” Dean says hastily, turning red beneath his freckles. “Sorry, I forgot — you’re a guy, so I wasn’t thinking, but — uh. That was rude. I shouldn’t have said it. Sorry.”

Cas ducks his chin, equally embarrassed.

“It’s fine. I, um, I shouldn’t have found it funny.”

There’s a huff of laughter, and when he glances up, Dean is wrinkling his brow.

“Why not? That’s good. It’s definitely better than you being offended.”

“But it’s . . . well, vulgar. I’m supposed to pretend not to understand. Laughing makes me vulgar, as well.”

“What? No, it doesn’t. I mean, it’s not a great joke for polite company, but my cousin probably would have _told_ it, never mind just thinking it was funny.”

Cas doesn’t see how that’s relevant.

“Yes, well, his circumstances are likely very different from mine.”

“Her,” Dean corrects. “Lady Joanna Beth Harvelle. And her sense of humor is _way_ more — what did you call it? _Vulgar,_ than mine.” He coughs. “Well, mostly.”

It’s difficult for Cas to imagine a woman saying such a thing, even if she weren’t an omega, but he’s always been told the capital is a different world, one full of careless sins.

“I see,” is all he says, and Dean deflates a little.

“Right. Anyway — sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” He clears his throat. “I’ll try not to do it again.”

Everything else aside, Cas can’t help but feel bad to see him looking so shamed.

“It’s fine, Alpha. If these are the customs of Lawrence, I’m grateful to be taught them.”

Cas may not know where he’ll end up, but it’s likely he’ll spend a few years in Lawrence, while he gives Dean heirs. His behavior should adapt accordingly.

Though, really, he supposes his behavior should be whatever Dean wishes it.

“Dean,” the prince reminds him, and Cas swears he sounds a little petulant. “Nobody uses designation titles, these days.”

“Oh. Apologies, Dean.”

Dean’s lips quirk.

“Yeah, like that. Thanks.” He shrugs, scratching the side of his head. “You, uh, you don’t have to change just for us, though. Not if you don’t want to. But — however you wanna act, when you’re with me — you know. Go ahead. I’m not gonna judge you or anything.”

_That,_ Cas almost laughs at outright, but he restrains himself, nodding seriously.

“Thank you.”

Dean smiles again, the warm glow of the setting sun turning his cheeks rosy beneath all the freckles.

“Sure. Anyway — looks like we’re here.”

Dean dismounts, then helps Cas down. Sleeping three hours on a horse has made his muscles stiff; he stumbles slightly, and Dean reaches out to steady him. The evening air is cool around him, a contrast to Dean’s near-embrace on the horse, but Dean’s hands are warm as they touch his side and arm.

Cas thanks him and tries to focus on thoughts of dinner, rather than anything that might happen after.

A maid leads him to a room upstairs, where there’s a small basin of water waiting on the dresser.

It’s a nicer room than he’s ever slept in, and he studiously ignores the enormous, soft looking four-poster bed on the opposite wall. Instead, he studies himself in the mirror above the dresser, a little dismayed at how much his stubble has come in since this morning.

And even though he knows he shouldn’t care, that there’s little to be done to make himself attractive, and that he shouldn’t _want_ anyone to find him thus, anyway — especially not anyone who originally meant to come and _steal his sister from her home_ — he can’t help himself; he’s relieved when he finds the shaving tools next to the bowl.

Hopefully, the prince won’t be angry over the time he takes.

Cas makes short work of his ablutions, pleased to find a small jar of lotion to soothe the skin when he’s done, and with one last glance in the mirror, he makes his way downstairs.

The same maid is waiting for him at the bottom, and takes him to a dining room, where the guard is already assembled, conversing among themselves. They fall quiet as he enters.

Cas hesitates a moment before he takes the empty chair on Dean’s left, conscious of the room watching him.

“Dude or not, Dean lucked out,” he hears someone mutter, and Dean coughs loudly.

“Go ahead and eat, guys. And remember your manners, alright?”

There’s friendly grumbling in response, but then the guard is reaching for the dishes in the center of the table, and Dean catches Cas’s eye with a pained smile.

“Sorry,” he says, though Cas has no idea what he’s apologizing for.

“It’s fine. I apologize for the wait.”

“Oh, no, we didn’t, really. I just got here a few minutes ago.”

Cas nods, unsure what to say to that, and after a moment, Dean nods, too, reaching for the nearest serving dish.

Cas, for his part, was not exactly prepared for this scenario; he assumed he’d be put in the prince’s room and brought a small meal, or something. At no point did he expect to sit down to dinner with nearly a dozen other people, completely ignorant to the expected custom. Even at home, Cas took his dinner in the attic; once he presented, he was no longer acceptable company.

Unease fills him, the kind that comes with having no idea what you’re supposed to do, but knowing you’ll thoroughly embarrass yourself as you make an attempt. Is he supposed to wait for the others to eat? Is he allowed to simply serve himself? Should he—

Dean deposits a ladleful of roasted beef and broth on Cas’s plate, then serves himself the same. He moves on, pausing with a big spoon of stewed vegetables, and squints at it.

“Don’t see any cabbage,” he says after a moment, and then gently overturns the spoon next to Cas’s beef before moving to the next dish.

“Don’t you want any vegetables?” Cas asks, a little shell-shocked by it all.

The table falls silent.

For a moment, he’s terrified he’s made a grave mistake, that some horrible punishment is sure to follow — but then the guard all breaks into laughter.

“Shut up, guys,” Dean grouses, cheeks red, and retrieves the vegetable spoon. “I was going to, I just _forgot._ ”

It sounds farfetched to Cas’s ears, but he decides it’s better not to say anything.

(He _did_ lie about the cabbage.)

Dean fills the plate with more food than Cas generally eats across two _days,_ never mind for a single meal, and though Cas gamely tries to finish it all, he barely makes it two-thirds of the way through.

“Full?” Dean asks, and Cas nods apologetically. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure how much you’d eat. You’re not exactly small, you know?”

Cas freezes.

On Dean’s right, Benny’s face drops into his palms.

“I’m aware,” Cas acknowledges stiffly. “Perhaps I should eat less, next mealtime.”

Dean gives him a confused look.

“Uh. Sure? Sorry if you felt obligated.”

“Not at all.”

The confusion bleeds into discomfort.

“Uh. But, you know, you can eat as much as you want, too. You know. Whatever’s better.”

Benny sighs.

“Thank you, Alpha,” Cas says, not at all deliberate, and Dean winces.

“Right.” He turns back to his plate, baleful. “Sure.”

There’s no reason for the prince to be uncomfortable, of course; Cas is as tall as any man in the town, and his labor has made him disagreeably brawny, as well. The prince was merely stating a truth.

Still, it’s not Cas’s place to reassure him on this front, so he politely remains silent.

Dean finishes his own dinner, and after at least two furtive glances in Cas’s direction, clears his throat.

“Mind if I finish yours? No point in letting it go to waste.”

Cas inclines his head.

“If it pleases you. Alpha.”

The look Dean throws Benny might fairly be described as ‘helpless.’

Again, though — it’s hardly any of Cas’s business.

The prince remains downstairs, discussing arrangements for the morning, and Cas returns to the room with no small amount of trepidation. There’s a bath waiting for him, and Cas scrubs himself thoroughly, one eye on the door. He wishes he could linger, could sit and savor a bath he neither had to draw himself or take cold — especially after spending the day on a horse — but Dean could come up at any moment.

He’ll probably be annoyed if Cas isn’t ready for him.

Cas towels off, doing his best to dry his hair and smooth it out, to little effect. He’s fussed with it at least ten minutes before he gives up, at which point he discovers a new problem: he has nothing to wear to bed.

His nightgown is miles away in the attic, of course, and he’s not about to sleep in his nice new dress. Even if he weren’t worried about rumpling it, he doesn’t kid himself that it still smells as fresh as it could. Given the hot bath Dean must have sent up, Cas doubts he wants him smelling of horses while they do this.

Which — he hopes _Dean_ had a bath. Dean’s scent is . . . agreeable, though Cas is firmly avoiding thinking about it — or his very nice green eyes, or anything else — but even if it weren’t, Cas is pretty sure _he_ wouldn’t want it covered up by the smell of sweat and horses, either.

The thought edges toward somewhat dangerous territory, so Cas retreats from it a little, deciding to focus on the bath issue. Really, it’s only a good thing if Dean prefers him freshly bathed. Yes, Cas will have to tolerate his nightly attentions, _but_ that also means he may get a nightly _bath,_ and the idea of such a self-indulgent luxury has his heart racing a little in excitement.

A hot bath, _every single night._

It could be worse, he reasons.

Ultimately, he decides to perch in the middle of the bed, not sure if he’s allowed to get in and figuring the prince probably doesn’t want him clothed, anyway. He spares a self-conscious glance over his shoulder, though he can’t really see the worst of his back, but if it’s a problem, Dean can simply find him a shirt for next time.

Abruptly, there’s a sharp knock at the door, and Cas jumps a little.

“Come in,” he calls, uncertain, and the maid from earlier appears, a small bundle of clothes in her arms. Her smile falters a little when she sees him, cheeks going pink.

“Oh, I beg your pardon.”

Cas colors as well, instinctively bringing his knees up and curling around them, embarrassed by his nakedness.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I was expecting someone else.”

Her awkwardness fades a bit, and she ducks her chin, smiling.

“Ah, yes. They told me the Prince was come to stay with us, and I didn’t believe it till I saw him. He’s a handsome one, isn’t he?”

Cas coughs, torn between an instinctive denial and a fear of offending her.

“I’m no judge.”

She laughs, coming to set the clothes down beside him, though her gaze is still averted.

“Don’t have to be, to appreciate that.” She pauses. “Unless . . . I’m sorry, I never met a boy omega before. Is it that you only like women?”

It takes him a moment to understand what she’s asking.

“I don’t like anything,” he says honestly. He’s a male omega, after all. He wasn’t made to ‘like’ anything, anymore than anyone should like him. Technically, he’s not even sure he _can_ bear children, though he gets his heats just like Anna.

Which — Cas has never given it a thought before, since he knew he’d never have a mate, never mind children, but that will present a problem, if he can’t.

He decides to worry about it later.

“Oh, I have a cousin like that!” she exclaims, momentarily pleased, and then her face falls. “Oh, but you were expecting — oh.”

Cas tilts his head, puzzled by her uneasy look.

“Is it true that — are you from New Eden?” she asks suddenly, and he blinks.

“Yes?”

“I see how it is then,” she murmurs, and if Cas didn’t know better, he’d say she seemed dismayed. “Never much liked the idea of all that, but — anyhow, I’m sure I’m sorry for you. I — I hope it’s alright.”

After a moment, she nudges the clothes toward him.

“He sent these up for you, by the by. His Highness. Said you only had the one thing to wear.” She tsks. “We’ll sort out more for you in the morning, but for now, here’s one of his nightshirts. You look close enough in size, so it should fit you alright.”

Cas frowns at the reminder.

“I suppose.” He inspects the bundle, picking up some sort of baggy, short cotton pants. “Are these . . . drawers?”

Cas never had any pretty, lacy ones like Anna’s, but even compared to his, these seem a little too bulky. Like some cross between plain drawers and a summer-weight trouser.

“Pajama pants,” she corrects him, shooting him a puzzled look. “Do you really wear drawers?”

He lifts his brows.

“Don’t tell me you don’t?”

“Yes, but I’m—” She cuts off, looking embarrassed. “Well. What do I know? Although — I’m sorry, I don’t have any for you.”

“It’s alright.” Cas hadn’t expected pajamas, to begin with, so this is fine. “Thank you for bringing them to me.”

“My pleasure.” She nods at him, offering a sympathetic smile. “Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

She leaves, and after a moment, he puts on the pajamas. They smell clean, but there’s unmistakable traces of the prince’s scent on them, and Cas is torn between feeling uneasy over it and strangely comforted.

He’s there another five minutes or so, quietly listening to the clock hands, before he hears footsteps and voices — more than one.

They’re muffled, but they’re drawing nearer, the pattern of shuffling a little strange to Cas’s ears. He listens, apprehensive.

“—am your _prince!_ If I wanna stay in your room, you _have_ to let me!”

“And I gotta let you take the bed, brother, but you’ll insist on sleepin’ on the floor, and I can’t let my prince do that, either. So go on and go to your own room so we can both get a decent night’s rest, alright?”

“Which I’d be happy to do if you assholes hadn’t booked _one room._ ”

Cas thinks he hears a chuckle, probably Benny’s.

“Can’t wait to tell your brother and the rest about this.”

“Damn it, Benny, it’s not funny! I can’t share a room with him! What am I even supposed to do?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure somethin’ out.”

The door abruptly swings open, and Dean stumbles through, back first. Over his shoulder, Benny looks up at Cas, waving cheerily.

“Good night, Castiel. See y’all in the morning. If he starts snorin’, just put a pillow over his face for a few seconds.”

“ _Benny_!” Dean hisses, glancing back at Cas with a horrified look.

“Night, brother.”

Benny nimbly shuts the door, Dean lurching after it, and silence descends.

Honestly, Cas is rather surprised. Given what he’s heard about the capital, it’s difficult to believe Dean doesn’t know what to do.

On the other hand, he _is_ the crown prince. Maybe he’s supposed to maintain his purity until it’s time to produce heirs, just to avoid accidents.

Cas suppresses a sigh. His talk was so _vague;_ he’d just assumed the prince, at least, would know what to do.

This is bound to end poorly.

“If it helps,” he starts, halting. “I think I’m supposed to undress.”

Dean swivels, giving Cas an alarmed look.

“Sorry?”

“Or you’re supposed to undress me. I’m not sure. But I think — at least my skirt. Well, pants. Assuming it works the same way as it does with animals.” He frowns. It has to, right? He may lack firsthand experience, but based on his own body, he imagines it’s something similar.

Dean’s mouth falls open.

“The same way it — what?”

“Intimacy,” Cas clarifies, a bit startled at Dean’s ignorance. “To, um, produce the heirs? We have to . . .”

He trails off, unsure how to finish, since he doesn’t know _exactly_ what they have to do, and Dean doesn’t seem to either.

_Anna_ would know what to do, he thinks bitterly. Anna always knew things she wasn’t supposed to, somehow, and she probably knew about this, too. He’s happy to do this, if it means she doesn’t have to, but he wishes he had her same advantages.

Dean just stares at him for several seconds, green eyes wide and dark in the dim light of the candle.

And then he starts shaking his head.

“No, no, no, that’s not — we’re not — nobody’s making any heirs tonight, okay?”

Cas nods, a little relieved.

“Alright. Are you going to ask someone?”

“What?”

“How to do it.”

“ _What_?”

“You told Benny you didn’t know what to do.”

“I meant about — sharing a _room_ with you, not — I _know_ what to do!”

Oh. Well, that’s a relief.

“That’s good. I don’t.”

Dean scrubs a hand down his face, and Cas shifts awkwardly on the bed.

“As for the room-sharing — it’s been some time since I’ve done so, but if the bed is this big, I think we’re supposed to share it.”

When Dean looks up again, he appears vaguely pained.

“Yeah. Yeah, Cas, I got that, except — you don’t even know me. You can’t possibly be okay sharing a bed with me.”

Cas blinks.

“Cas?”

Dean flushes.

“Sorry. Castiel.”

Hesitant, Cas shrugs.

“Sometimes I’m called Cas. You can call me that.”

For whatever reason, Dean relaxes a little.

“Oh. Okay. Thank you.”

It’s somewhat amusing, since really, Dean can call him whatever he likes.

Which brings him to his next point.

“I expected to share your bed when we stopped, Dean.”

Dean just looks at him.

“Expectation and acceptance are two different things.”

“I accepted that I’d have to,” he clarifies, and Dean snaps his fingers.

“See? That you’d _have_ to.”

Cas doesn’t understand.

“I don’t understand,” he says aloud, and Dean sighs, leaning back against the door.

“Look. I guess — for now, the question is — are you really gonna sleep comfortably, knowing some strange alpha is right next to you?”

“Probably not.” Cas pauses. “Though that may have something to do with the nap I took. I thought you were going to bed me, and I didn’t want to be tired again tomorrow.”

Dean stares at him for a moment, then barks a laugh.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Tell you what, Cas; I’m gonna grab a spare blanket and pillow and sleep on the floor over here. How’s that sound?”

“I thought Benny said you weren’t supposed to sleep on the floor,” he protests, suspicious. He doesn’t want to get in trouble.

“Yeah, well, Benny’s not supposed to argue with me, either, but here we are.”

Cas nods slowly, considering.

“You’re not going to bed me tonight,” he states, searching Dean’s face.

It reddens as he watches.

“Uh. No. No, I am not.”

“Alright. Then — I am comfortable sharing the bed with you.”

Dean frowns.

“Wait, but — what if I’m lying?”

“You could just as easily be lying on the floor,” Cas points out, and for some reason, Dean starts laughing.

“Fine, man. Have it your way.” He pauses, still smiling. “Tell me if you change your mind. I’ll move.”

His concern for Cas’s comfort is _bizarre,_ and for the life of him, Cas can’t understand his motives.

Still, when Dean wanders over and pulls back the covers, disapprovingly urging Cas to get underneath, Cas simply crawls in. The bed is as soft and cozy as it looked, and when he involuntarily lets out a sigh of contentedness, Dean grins at him.

Cas decides to worry about it later.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: references to/discussions of the expectation of Dean and Cas having intercourse and producing heirs (again, this does not happen), mild violence/injury (details in the notes), please let me know if I forgot anything.

Cas sleeps on his stomach, as it turns out, one side of his face smushed against the pillow and fingers loosely curled on either side of his head.

At least, that’s how he is when Dean wakes up. Dean watches him for a moment, blinking sleepily at the soft rise and fall of his back and vaguely marveling at the fact that he’s still asleep. Despite the weirdly relaxed atmosphere before bed — probably explained by the whole hey-we’re-not-gonna-have-dubiously-consensual-sex-tonight-after-all thing — Dean expected to lie there in awkward silence for a while before anyone actually managed sleep.

Ten minutes in, though, Cas appeared to be out cold, while Dean was still staring at the ceiling and trying not to notice how nice Cas smelled, freshly bathed and drowsing happily in a big, comfy bed, all snuggled up in Dean’s pajamas.

And that was good, that Cas felt so comfortable — in fact, it kind of made Dean’s chest feel really funny when he surreptitiously glanced over to confirm Cas seriously just _fell asleep,_ like Dean hadn’t probably been the villain in all his recent nightmares — but Dean was restless and keyed up and it took him a lot longer. In light of that, he kind of expected Cas to be up before him.

But nope. In the early morning silence, he can hear Cas’s quiet, steady breathing, and he lies there while the soft blue light turns to gold, straight on until Cas suddenly sucks in a breath, the corner of his mouth ticking up as he shifts, curling up with a sigh.

Dean waits, watching that almost-smile intently, and then blue eyes blink open.

Cas goes still.

“Good morning,” Dean says awkwardly, suddenly very conscious of the fact that he just spent half an hour watching the poor dude sleep. “Sleep okay?”

Cas nods, relaxing a little.

“Yes. Thank you.” He closes his eyes again, turning his face into the pillow slightly, before murmuring, “And you?”

“Slept great,” Dean says, and it’s mostly not a lie. The actual sleep was great. It was the getting there that was the problem, and the right-now, when his heart seems to think he just sprinted five miles and his brain is refusing to function in any kind of useful way.

Dean almost feels like he’s fourteen and newly-presented again, suddenly aware that hormones are a thing and high-key panicking over it.

“Mm.”

They’re silent for a moment — Dean’s sure he’s breathing too loud, and oh God, none of this would have happened if Ash had just booked enough goddamn rooms — and then Cas opens his eyes again, studying him.

“Have you been awake long?”

“Uh. A little bit,” he hedges. He wonders if he should sit up. Both of them awake and lying down like this, looking at each other — that’s weird, isn’t it? They barely know each other, for Christ’s sake. It’s gotta be weird.

Cas’s brow dips.

“Oh. Were you waiting for me?”

“Uh. I — I guess? I didn’t wanna wake you before you were ready.”

There’s a long silence, and then Cas’s expression smoothes out. He nods.

“Thank you.” And then he shifts onto his back, pushing back the covers and reaching for his pants. “I understand now. I think it would be awkward to sleep after this. You were right to want to do it in the morning.”

Dean’s super glad Cas understands, but now _he’s_ confused, and he’s about to say so when Cas braces his feet against the mattress and lifts his hips. Dean gapes as he reaches for his sleep shorts and pushes them down, exposing thick, firm-looking thighs and—

“Fuck,” he hisses, hastily rolling over, away from the sight, all his blood rushing south like it thinks Winter’s going to start five fucking seconds from now. “Cas — Cas, put your pants back on, that’s not what I _meant,_ jesus!”

The rustling sounds behind him stop, which is good, because it means Cas isn’t getting _more_ undressed, but also bad, because it means he’s not putting his pants back on, either.

Fuck everything. Fuck the council for sending him out here and fuck Ash for making stupid assumptions and fuck Cas for having pretty eyes and great legs and oh, _no,_ Dean should not have thought the words ‘fuck Cas’ because now he’s thinking about—

“So — you _aren’t_ going to bed me this morning?”

Dean closes his eyes.

“Nope,” he grits out. Then, vaguely hysterical, he jokes, “Was never good at getting it up on an empty stomach.”

“Getting what up?” Cas asks, then adds, “And you ate a significant amount of food last night. I doubt your stomach’s empty.”

He says it very deliberately, sounding suspiciously pleased with himself, and it’s doing absolutely nothing to kill the sudden and inappropriate arousal Dean’s experiencing.

“Fair point,” he mutters, then decides to sit up, going with his earlier instinct of ‘lying in bed together is weird.’

But then he makes the mistake of glancing over at Cas, half-splayed out and pantsless and calmly scrutinizing him, and whatever progress he’d made aggressively backslides into no-man’s land.

“Cas,” he says, embarrassingly hoarse. “Could you — _please —_ put your pants back on?”

There’s silence, like Cas is thinking about it.

“Alright,” he says eventually, and there’s movement in Dean’s peripheral, Cas shifting around as he wriggles back into the pants. “May I ask when you _will_ bed me?”

After a quick peek to make sure it’s safe, Dean throws him an incredulous look.

“You make it sound like you _want_ me to.”

“Not really,” Cas says frankly, then gives Dean an uneasy look. “Though I promise to cooperate.”

Well, there goes the arousal, at least.

“Will it be tonight?”

“No!” Dean sputters. That’s — that’s _way_ too soon, for starters, and even though it has to happen eventually, Dean wants the safety and comfort of his own home to get him through it.

Cas nods.

“So not last night. Or this morning. Or tonight.”

“Uh. No?” Dean’s not sure where he’s going with this.

Cas takes a deep breath.

“Obviously, you may do as you wish. However.” He clears his throat, still not looking at Dean. “However, it would be nice to know. What to expect.”

Dean stares at him for a long moment, letting the shame sink in, and Cas takes a deep breath.

“You told me we’d be stopping at an inn for dinner, and to rest, and that there would be a carriage today,” he continues carefully. “That was very generous of you. I appreciated it. It’s . . . comforting. To know what’s ahead.”

Dean swallows, feeling like an utter heel.

“Right. Right, of course you — that, uh, that makes sense, I didn’t think—” He cuts off, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t — I don’t know, Cas. Not exactly. But it won’t be until after we get to Lawrence. You probably — I mean, you’ll need at least a couple weeks to settle in, right? It’s, uh. It’s a big change, for you, and — you know, this would just be — just — really stressful, on top of everything else, so it’s probably better — you know. Couple weeks. At least.”

Cas looks surprised.

“That’s a long time.”

“What? Nah, that’s — hardly any time at all,” Dean insists, painfully cheery. “I actually — you know, I have a lot of stuff going on, at home, so I tend to get kind of, uh, busy, and I . . . lose track of time. So definitely a couple weeks. Maybe more? Who knows. But I’ll keep you updated,” he adds hastily, lest Cas get worried again. “I’m not gonna like — randomly pop up in your bedchamber, or anything, I’ll — I’ll let you know beforehand, you know? _Well_ beforehand, I mean.”

“Oh.” Cas nods, thoughtful. Dean’s a little afraid of what he’s thinking. “Alright. Thank you, Dean.”

“Sure.”

They’re quiet, and then Cas sits up, giving him a speculative look.

“When you say — my bedchamber,” he starts, then licks his lips. “Do you mean yours?”

“What? No, you’ll have your own.”

Cas nods slowly, expression suspiciously neutral.

“Just me,” he clarifies, and Dean nods.

“Yeah. Somewhere in the castle. Probably near mine? But again, I’m not gonna, you know, show up randomly.”

“I see.” Cas pauses, inspecting his hands. “Well. That’s fine.”

There is _definitely_ something else going on here, but it’s too early and Dean is still feeling too dumb to figure it out, so he just swings his legs over the side of the bed, glancing back at Cas with an awkward smile.

“So, how do you feel about breakfast?”

It’s a morning full of surprises.

More likely than not, Dean is just struggling to come to terms with what Cas is and requires more time to do it, but Cas appreciates the lengthy stay of bedding nonetheless.

What he appreciates even more is that he’s getting a _bedchamber._

One that’s entirely _his._

He tries to remind himself to be cautious, that there may exist a bedchamber that doesn’t really deserve the title, that they may still keep him in awful conditions — but Dean said it would be somewhere near his own.

Cas is confident the castle was built before New Eden’s rebellion, which means the bedchamber was originally designed to house guests of the royal family, which _means_ that unless they’ve put forth extensive effort to convert it to some sort of upstairs dungeon—

Cas may have something to look forward to, in Lawrence.

Dean offers to have breakfast brought up to him — the novelty of it, of having breakfast _someone else_ prepared, in _bed,_ renders him momentarily speechless — and sets off to order it and check on the status of Cas’s new clothes.

Cas waits for his footsteps to fade, then quickly lies back down, right in the center of the bed, and piles the blankets on top of himself. It’s the most comfortable bed he’s ever been in, and even though he knows he shouldn’t, he starts daydreaming about having one like it in Lawrence.

(And if the middle puts him much closer to the rich, woodsy scent Dean left behind, it’s not of import.)

He scrambles upright when he hears noise in the hallway again, not wanting to get caught indulging. A few moments later, the door opens, and Dean himself appears with a breakfast tray.

Cas blinks.

The crown prince of Winchester himself is delivering breakfast in bed to Castiel.

It feels somewhat unreal.

“Clothes should be ready for you once you’re done eating.” Dean hesitates. “Is it okay if I stick around, or did you wanna eat by yourself?”

It sounds like a trick question, and Cas isn’t sure how to answer it.

Dean’s been unexpectedly courteous to him, thus far, so Cas decides it’s probably fair to invite him to stay. Besides, ‘no’ may be the wrong answer, and Cas knows how quickly an alpha’s mood can change with even a little provocation.

“Please stay,” he says, and Dean looks vaguely pleased, setting the tray down in the center of the bed.

“Thanks.” He gestures toward it, where there’s fluffy eggs and spiced oatmeal and fruit and — “There’s cream and sugar there. I didn’t know how you took your coffee.”

Cas stares, uncomprehending.

“It’s for me?” he asks, incredulous.

Dean lifts his brows.

“Well, one of ‘em’s for me, but if you want, you can have both. I can get more.”

He gives Dean a sharp, searching look. Dean’s brow creases.

“Do you not drink it?”

“I do,” Cas says quickly, reaching for the mug. After a beat, he fumbles for the sugar spoon, dumping one heaping spoonful into his coffee and then, with a cautious glance at Dean, a second one.

No reprimand comes, so he decides to be reckless and fill it to the brim with cream.

When he looks again, Dean is grinning.

“You like it sweet, huh?”

Cas nods, stirring it carefully so it doesn’t splash over.

“Very much.” He takes a sip, eyes falling shut on a sigh. When he opens them, Dean looks amused and — something else. Something soft, maybe, almost like how Anna used to look at him when he gardened, except different in a way Cas can’t quite identify.

He hesitates.

“Is coffee readily available, in the capital?”

“Hm? Dude, of course. We’d go to war over our coffee.”

Cas has heard that Winchester will go to war over anything, but he nods politely, watching Dean carefully.

“And . . . for me?”

“For you?” Dean echoes. “Oh. Yeah, man, you can have all the coffee you want. There should be a bell in your room for when you want something. The kitchen’ll just send someone up and you can let them know what to bring you.”

Cas nearly spills his coffee, halfway to his mouth, his head turns toward Dean so abruptly.

He can’t possibly be serious, can he? He’s mocking Cas right now, because Cas was presumptuous and asked about future luxuries — isn’t he?

Dean’s expression is open and relaxed — a little proud, almost, though Cas doesn’t know why he would be — and Cas can’t identify any sort of malice or sarcasm in it.

“What to bring me,” he repeats, and Dean shrugs, reaching for his own cup. He carelessly splashes a little cream into it, barely giving it a stir afterward.

“Coffee, tea, snacks — whatever.”

“Snacks.” Cas squints at him, disbelieving, and Dean nods, though he’s focused on drinking his coffee.

“Might not have the same stuff you like to eat at home, but if you describe it to someone, they can probably make something similar.”

“Alright,” Cas says slowly, still trying to process.

This hardly seems like the dungeon scenario he and Anna imagined.

In fact, it looks like Cas is going to have regular hot baths, a (possibly) cozy bedchamber solely for his use, and all the coffee he pleases — and someone to bring it to him, along with any _snacks_ he desires.

Cas has heard the lectures in church, about harlots in the capital, and though he’s not exactly looking forward to the bedding process, he guiltily thinks such an exchange might be _worth it._

They savor their coffee in comfortable silence for a few minutes — and Cas can tell Dean is, indeed, savoring it — before Dean starts preparing plates.

“Cabbage free,” he assures Cas, winking. It’s a small, nonsensical gesture of the eye, and it gives Cas’s stomach a very strange feeling.

He must be hungrier than he thought, despite what he ate last night.

He accepts the plate, reluctantly setting down the rest of his coffee to eat.

“So, someone’ll bring some clothes by for you. I, uh, I couldn’t really get you a dress I thought would fit on such short notice, so I hope a shirt and trousers are okay for today.”

“Of course.” Cas wore pants until he presented at thirteen — would have liked to keep wearing them while he worked, at least — and while he feels preemptively self-conscious about it, having accustomed himself to the idea that it’s _indecent_ now, he’s reassured that no one else will think it’s odd. “Whatever’s available.”

“Great. When we get home, I’ll have the tailor meet with you, so you can decide on some clothes.”

Cas just nods, somewhat overwhelmed by it all.

“Anyway,” Dean continues. “The carriage is ready when we are, and we’ll stop for meals and stay at inns the next few nights, too. I’ll, uh, I’ll make sure you get your own room, next time.”

Cas has the strangest impulse to tell Dean that’s not necessary, but he ignores it.

“Alright.”

“We should reach the castle Monday afternoon. Sorry it’s so far.”

It’s not like Cas has anywhere else to go.

He gestures to his mug, trying a small smile. It feels awkward on his face.

“That’s what the coffee is for, I imagine.”

Dean huffs a laugh, rubbing his neck.

“Yeah. It’s not one of mine, so I don’t know how comfortable it’ll be, but it’ll probably be easier to nap in the carriage than on a horse. And, uh, I rounded up a couple novels for you to read, if you get bored. Don’t know if they’ll be your thing, though.”

Cas raises his brows, unable to stop himself.

“But novel-reading makes omegas—” he starts, and Dean makes a face.

“What?”

“Nothing. Is that — normal? For omegas in the capital?”

Dean stares, disbelieving.

“ _Seriously_? You guys don’t get _novels_?”

A little embarrassed, Cas frowns back at him.

“No. They might make us unwell. Mentally. At the very least, they make us behave poorly.”

Dean just sort of looks at him for a long moment, then sighs.

“Right. Well, omegas in the capital seem fine, but it’s up to you whether you wanna risk it.”

Cas has generally been told omegas in the capital are _not_ doing fine, but he does miss his adventure tales.

“Well. If it’s the custom there,” he says slowly, and swears he sees Dean’s lips twitch.

“Oh, it is. Omegas in the capital go crazy for their novels.”

“That’s what I’m worried ab-”

“ _Figuratively_ speaking,” Dean amends sharply, pointing a finger at Cas. “I’ll leave ‘em in the carriage for you.”

Cas shrugs, oddly pleased by the reproach, though he shouldn’t be.

“Alright.”

He doesn’t smile as he eats his (enormous) breakfast, but it’s a near thing.

Dean doesn’t even say anything, but for some reason Benny takes one look at him and sighs.

“Aw, hell.”

“What?”

“Don’t do it, brother. Thought you might, soon as they told us we’d be takin’ him with us, and it needs to be said: just don’t.”

“I have no idea what you’re trying to say to me, man.”

Benny just shakes his head.

“You’re glowin’, chief.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Just sayin’, it’s a bad idea.”

Dean opens his mouth to reiterate his confusion, but Benny gives him a pointed look.

“You know what I’m talking about. Don’t play dumb when I know you’re not.” He tilts his head. “If you think it’ll be easier, this way, you’re bein’ a fool. It’ll just make it harder for both o’ you.”

Dean swallows, looking down.

“It’s not like that,” he says eventually.

“If you say so.”

Anyway, Benny’s clearly overreacting, so Dean just keeps his chin up and finishes inspecting the carriage.

He can feel his friend's eyes on him, anyway.

“You know they already did that, right?”

“Shut up. Dad’ll kill me if something happens to Ca—to the guy.”

There’s a very judgmental silence behind him.

Dean ignores it.

Once he’s stocked the interior of the carriage with a pillow and blanket, bag of snacks, and the novels he promised, he steps back and claps his hands together.

“Alright, round everybody up. I think we’re ready.”

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Benny mutters. He ambles off before Dean can dignify that with a response.

When Dean gets back upstairs, Cas is dressed and sitting criss-crooss on the bed, sifting through the bag of clothing they figured out for him, curiously fingering the various materials. Dean pauses to watch him from the door for a moment; he’s got graceful hands, careful as they handle the garments. They’re pretty.

Although, _everything_ about Cas is pretty. Even the stuff Dean accidentally saw this morning when he took off his pants—

“Sorry. I hope it’s okay that I looked through it.”

Dean takes a quiet breath.

“Yeah, it’s yours now. If you’re not happy with something, though, we can try again in the next town.”

“This is fine,” Cas says, finally setting the bag aside and looking up. “Is it time to leave?”

“Yep.” Dean cracks a smile, sweeping his arm out with a flourish. “Your carriage awaits.”

Cas tilts his head.

“What else would it do?”

Dean honestly can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He _thinks_ there’s a glint of amusement in Cas’s eye, but then Cas is crawling off the bed, tugging the bag after him.

Dean falters, momentarily caught up in how Cas’s trousers look on him, but then he looks away, shaking his head.

He can’t spend the whole trip ogling the poor guy, especially when Cas has made it clear that he’s the opposite of stoked about the whole ‘bedding’ thing. No matter how polite he was about it.

“Alright, follow me.”

Dean turns, starting down the hallway, and Cas obediently trails after.

Cas is looking uncomfortable, fingers curled at his sides, when Dean goes to take his bag from him. He murmurs his thanks, eyes on the ground as they walk to the carriage, and even though that’s how he was when they first picked him up, now it looks off, somehow.

“Everything okay?”

Cas glances up briefly, then nods.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Alright. Snacks in the bag, novels on the seat. Threw a pillow and blanket in there, in case you get cold or wanna nap. Just unlatch the window and poke your head out if you need anything else; I’ll be riding alongside you.”

Cas studies him for a moment before nodding again.

“That’s good,” he says, and maybe he’s just being polite again, but Dean’s heart stumbles a little at the words.

He’s not sure what to say, so he just smiles and offers Cas a hand up, though he doesn’t think he really needs it. Cas looks at him like he’s thinking the same thing, but after a moment, he firmly grips Dean’s hand and climbs onto the seat.

Dean lets go, then, a little reluctantly. He likes riding, feels perfectly at home on a horse — maybe too much at home, given his bow legs — but he kind of wishes he were taking the carriage with Cas.

“Thank you, Dean.”

More than ever, Dean is glad they don’t use designation titles in Lawrence. He’s not sure his name wasn’t designed specifically to be said in Cas’s voice.

“Sure.” He pats the side of the carriage. “Remember, if you need anything—”

“I’ll open the window,” Cas finishes, though he’s looking at Dean with an expression Dean can’t quite make out.

“Yep. Uh. Talk to you in a bit, I guess.”

He steps back, ready to shut the door — and catches sight of what was probably the source of Cas’s earlier discomfort.

The guard is staring, not very discreetly, and they’re not the curious stares from yesterday. They’re more like interested, _roving_ stares, and Dean shuts the carriage door a little harder than necessary when it becomes clear Ash is looking at the long, lean line of Cas’s leg.

He stalks over, glowering at them all.

“Don’t be rude.”

“Hey, I’m not bein’ rude, Captain,” Ash protests. “I’m just admiring.”

“Same damn thing and you know it. And — don’t look at his legs.”

“Why not? They’re nice legs. Hell, I wish I had legs like that.”

They are very nice, but that’s beside the fucking point, and Dean gives him a look he hopes conveys that.

Ash holds his hands up.

“Woah, no need to draw your pistol, I’m gettin’ on my horse.”

He salutes, clambering up, and with one last warning look at the rest of them, Dean does the same.

Cas has never left New Eden before, but he’s in the carriage less than an hour before he decides that travel is boring.

At least yesterday, he slept through most of it, but today he’s had a spectacular night’s rest and every single minute seems to drag on.

By hour two, he caves and opens one of the novels.

By hour three, he’s not sure, exactly, how any of this would drive him _mad,_ but he can certainly see how it would encourage misbehavior. First of all, the omega heroine determines to marry the hero on the grounds that he’s _handsome_ and by pure happenstance rescued her and her sisters from a dire fate, which is not so bad, except the hero is a _pirate._ Which makes him a violent criminal, based on Cas’s understanding of such things.

What’s more, he’s a _beta._ There are generally fewer omegas than there are alphas, and Cas has never heard of a beta being allowed to mate one.

But no; this omega masquerades as a beta to go down to the docks and stow away on the hero’s ship, and then — and _then —_ she trades _kisses_ for safe passage to a country she’s not even trying to get to.

It’s absurd, and scandalous, and hardly behavior to emulate — but since Cas has nothing else to do, he reads it anyway.

By hour four, he’s halfway through, though he’s very confused by a kissing scene that abruptly cuts off when they start walking toward the bed (which seems like it would be difficult to do while kissing, but what does Cas know?). If the next scene, where another crew member bursts into the cabin and announces they’re under attack, didn’t begin on the same page, Cas would assume a page was simply missing.

He’s engrossed in the aftermath of the battle _,_ heart racing a little as the ship doctor tries to save someone’s arm, when suddenly, a loud _bang_ sounds from up ahead.

The carriage jerks to a halt, shouts and curses sounding from outside. A moment later, Dean’s face appears in the window.

“Stay in the carriage!” he shouts through the glass, then takes off.

Cas sits there, tense as he listens, for about half a minute.

Then he pushes open the carriage door and carefully peers outside.

What he sees in the road ahead does nothing to calm his thundering pulse.

Dean and his guard are in the path, pistols drawn. A group of masked men stand opposite them, weapons out, and to the side, there’s an overturned carriage, a young man and two small children huddling beside it.

Highwaymen, Cas decides, going still. The last thing he wants to do is distract anyone and have someone start firing.

“Stand down,” Dean orders.

“No,” the apparent leader snarls. “ _You_ put your weapons down and hand over your valuables, else we kill you all.”

Sometime while he’s talking, Cas realizes some of the guard is missing. At least Benny is gone, and a quick scan of the ground fails to turn up any bodies.

He glances toward the woods on the other side of the road, and sure enough, he can see two figures in the trees.

He looks away. He hasn’t been noticed yet, but he’d feel like a fool if he managed to give away their position.

“I doubt it. Even if you do, at least a few of you aren’t gonna make it.”

“We’ll risk it,” the man sneers. “Final warning. Put ‘em down or we shoot.”

Dean studies him for a moment, then just barely inclines his head.

Immediately, a shot rings out. The leader of the highwaymen drops like a stone, his companions twisting wildly to track the sound just as another comes. Dean and his guard take advantage of the chaos, charging forward to attack, and in the commotion, Cas hears a sharp cry from the side.

The young man is kneeling on the ground now, half obscured by his overturned carriage.

Cas doesn’t think twice. He gets out of the carriage fully, circling around the back, and quickly makes his way to the side of the road.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, resisting the impulse to look over his shoulder. There’s nothing he can do over there.

The young man looks up, frantic, and as Cas rounds the carriage, he sucks in a breath.

There’s a woman lying on the ground, legs pinned by the vehicle. A dark red stain is spreading out from her shoulder, cuts on her face, and she’s at least unconscious, if not dead.

“I can’t lift it,” the young man sobs. “Please, please help.”

He looks almost Cas’s age, if considerably more slight — Cas isn’t familiar with any of the fashions he’s seen, but the young man’s clothing looks finely made — and Cas would be surprised if he did much in the way of physical things.

Well, his own labor might as well be good for something.

“Alright. Get ready to pull her out.”

The young man looks at him, hope and doubt mixing on his face.

“It’s heavy. Even with the luggage gone-”

“Just be ready,” Cas interrupts, not liking the growing paleness to her face. He moves to the other side of the pair, squatting slightly and maneuvering his fingers beneath the roof. The man settles behind her and hooks his arms beneath hers. “On three.”

Cas can’t be sure how much it weighs, and may very well be about to throw out his back — in which case he’ll have to hope the guard gets done soon enough — but he starts counting anyway.

On three, he tightens his legs, heaving upwards with all his might. There’s a terrifying moment where it doesn’t move, where he can feel how hard his body strains against it, threatening to give, but he grits his teeth, trying harder anyway.

At last, he feels it move, creaking as he inches it up.

“Now,” he gasps, and the man pulls, sliding the woman out from underneath. Cas lets it drop with a groan, every single limb trembling from the exertion, and he drops to his knees on the ground.

“Oh, God, thank you,” the young man weeps, cradling the woman’s head in his lap. “I told her I could drive, but she said I was still too young, that I had to stay in the carriage and babysit, and then they _shot_ at her and she lost control, and oh, _God_ , is she going to be okay?”

Cas hesitates, looking her over. Color’s coming back to her cheeks, which seems like a good sign, but he’s not a doctor and he has no idea what her injuries might mean.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly, and a few feet off, a child hiccups tearfully. “But I think we should stop the blood.”

The man — perhaps more of a boy — gives Cas a hopeless look, and after a moment, Cas starts unbuttoning the vest they gave him, shrugging it aside and reaching for the hem of his overshirt.

What is modesty in the face of a woman’s life? he thinks wryly, and strips it off.

He balls it up, pressing it to the wound just as Dean and several of the guard make it to the carriage, gasping at the sight.

“She’s been shot, and the carriage fell on her,” Cas explains, as calmly as he can manage. “We need to take them to the nearest town.”

“Preston should be about five miles down the road,” Benny says quickly, coming around to kneel beside them. “Ash, Victor, come help me lift her up. We need to get her into the carriage.”

Cas backs away, giving them space. The young man reluctantly stands, and the two children crowd around him, pressing wet faces into his coat.

“Come on, then,” Benny tells him. “You’ll need to sit in there and keep pressin’ this to the wound, alright?”

With a jerky nod, he follows, the children trailing behind. Cas starts after them, only to be stopped by a hand on his wrist.

He turns, surprised to find Dean watching him, face unreadable.

“We need to hurry,” Cas says, and after a moment, Dean releases him, only to start pulling off his jacket. “You don’t have to—”

Dean tugs it off, holding it out.

“Put it on, Cas.”

Cas presses his lips together, but nods.

“May I ride with you? I believe the carriage may be full.”

He gets a faintly disbelieving look for the question, and he frowns. The woman will need an entire bench, and it will be a cramped fit with the other three.

Unless Dean expects him to walk.

“Of course you’re riding with me,” he snaps, then starts past him. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

Bewildered, Cas follows.

The woman’s leg is broken, but the bullet went through without hitting anything important, and the doctor tentatively declares her likely to live.

“There’s internal things,” he cautions. “Things we can’t always see. But none of the signs are there, so — I believe she’ll recover.”

The young man — certainly more of a boy, the longer Cas looks at him — throws his arms around Cas and sobs against the borrowed jacket, Cas standing stiffly all the while.

“Thank you, thank you — you saved her.”

Cas is pretty sure the guard bringing her here was the most important thing, but he nods patiently.

This close and without the overwhelming stench of fear and distress, Cas can scent the boy, and though he’s initially disconcerted to have an alpha clinging to him like this, he ultimately reasons that the boy is clearly still a child.

He’s at least in his late teens, though; Cas is a little startled that a woman, whatever her designation, forbade him from driving. Perhaps Winchester is even more different than he’s been told.

“Is she . . . family?” he asks, unsure. The children are too old to belong to him, Cas thinks.

The young man nods.

“My sister. My _only_ sister. I don’t — I don’t know what I’d do without her. And her _children —_ she’s widowed, you know, I can’t take care of a family, I’m only twenty-two, I’d completely fail her—”

Twenty-two? So he’s only a couple years shy of Cas, after all. Were Cas not a boy, he would have been married years ago. He’s always thought Anna was secretly a little grateful that being promised to Winchester meant she made it to twenty-six unwed.

Very different, indeed.

“I hope she makes a full recovery,” he says, sincere, although now that his nerves have settled down, he’s tired and a little bit sad, because he can’t help but think of his own only sister.

He has no idea if she’s okay or not.

Eventually, the young man settles down, unlatching himself and drifting back to his sister’s side. Cas is trying to figure out a way for him to send word, once he knows her condition for sure, when Dean walks in.

Cas moves toward the door, nodding at him.

“How’s it going?” Dean asks quietly.

“They can’t promise, but they believe she’ll be alright.”

Dean nods.

“Good.” He sniffs, then, giving Cas a sidelong glance.

Cas ignores it.

After a moment, Dean approaches the bed.

“We need to head out, unless there’s anything else we can do.”

The boy shakes his head.

“You’ve done more than enough. We’re in your debt.”

Dean shakes his head.

“Don’t worry about it. I hope she makes a full recovery. Would you send word to Winchester Castle when you know?”

The boy blinks.

“Winchester Castle?” he echoes. Dean smiles slightly.

“Your humble prince, at your service.”

Blue eyes go round.

“Prince Dean!” he exclaims, eyes shining, and once again, Cas is a little stunned to know his age. “Of course. Oh — is this your _fiancé_? Charlotte will be so sad she missed this!”

Dean’s smile drops, shoulders tensing.

“Uh. No. No, Cas is . . . he’s from New Eden.”

There’s a long silence as the boy’s delight visibly fades.

“I thought we didn’t do that anymore,” he blurts out, then looks embarrassed. “S-sorry, your highness. I didn’t mean—”

Dean waves a hand, sighing.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too, kid.”

The boy frowns.

“If you don’t like it, do something about it. You’re the prince.”

“Which means I gotta listen to the king more than anybody, trust me.”

Cas looks away, turning slightly toward the door. It’s interesting to know that Dean had wanted to marry someone, as his father did, though Cas understands people in the capital generally have more say in choosing their spouses. He’d feel sorry for him, but right now he’s thinking of his sister, who could very well be crushed beneath a carriage at this very moment. If she is, it’s all Winchester’s fault, and in some ways, Dean’s.

Dean can say he’s bound by his father’s will, but thinking of Anna, potentially alone and in danger, Cas can’t help but agree that Dean should have done something if he really didn’t like it.

He certainly has more power than Cas or Anna did.

The sister — Charlotte — begins to stir, then, and the boy promptly abandons his indignation, reaching for her hand.

“I knew being a mother would kill me someday,” she mutters, blinking around the room, and when the boy’s laughter quickly turns to loud, trembling sobs, Dean and Cas quietly excuse themselves.

The carriage has undergone a quick cleaning by the time Cas has changed his clothes and returned to it, but this time, Dean climbs in with him.

Cas blinks.

“What about your horse?”

“Benny’ll lead her,” Dean says shortly.

“Alright.”

They’re silent for a moment, staring at one another, but there’s something hard in Dean’s eyes and it makes Cas uncomfortable enough that he looks down, reaching for his book.

“I told you to wait in the carriage.”

Cas’s hand freezes.

“Yes,” he says slowly. “You did.”

“And you got out.”

“They needed help.”

“And you could tell that from in here?”

Cas straightens, giving Dean an even look. A part of him is nervous, has no idea what Dean’s like when he’s angry, but another part of him is angry in turn.

“I wanted to know what was happening.”

“Right, and once you _saw_ what was happening, why the hell didn’t you get back in?”

“I didn’t want to distract anyone.”

“And when bullets started flying? Did it not occur to you that you should maybe _get back in the fucking carriage_?”

And Cas — well, Cas snaps.

“No,” he says, leaning across the aisle. “Because I heard someone cry out, and I wanted to help if I could. And I _did._ So if you want to punish me, then do it, but don’t expect me to apologize for that.”

Dean recoils.

“ _Punish_ you? I don’t want to _punish_ you, Cas. I want you to not get _shot_ at!”

“Why?” Cas asks, lip curling. “You’re not even two days away from New Eden. Just go back and ask for a replacement.”

Dean’s jaw goes slack, and he stares.

Then his hands curl into fists, and Cas braces himself, because he was crossing a line and he knew it and yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

Dean wouldn’t have waited, last night, if it had been Anna. He would have made Cas’s proud, clever sister roll over for him from the first, and no matter how nicely she was kept, eventually he’d be done with her, and she would never come back home again.

He deserves every bit of defiance Cas can muster, and if it costs Cas, then so be it. What does he really have to lose, anymore?

“God damn it,” Dean mutters, and then he’s rising, and Cas just lifts his chin, because he refuses to back down—

But then Dean throws open the carriage door and calls everyone to a halt.

Cas watches as he waits for it to slow, before jumping out and slamming the door behind him.

After a moment, the carriage glides back into motion.

“Do you want to eat with everyone else or do you want dinner sent to your room?” is all Dean can bring himself to say when they reach the inn, hours later than intended.

Cas doesn’t look at him.

“My room.”

Dean just nods tersely in return. He’s sure as hell not taking it up himself, this time.

What a bullshit day. If stumbling upon a group of highwaymen terrorizing an innocent family wasn’t bad enough, he was halfway through dealing with them only to turn around and find the carriage door wide open, Cas nowhere in sight. For a few awful, heart-stopping moments, he was convinced they’d missed one, that Cas had been hauled off into the woods, to face God knows what.

And then he’d turned back, just in time to see Cas _lift a goddamn carriage._

By _himself._

Everyone within eyesight had literally stopped and _stared,_ stupefied as they watched Cas’s sleeves pull taut across his arms and shoulders, his legs visibly straining through the fabric of his pants, too. For a moment, Dean was sure he wouldn’t be able to do it — how could he? — but then the thing fucking moved, and suddenly there was a woman there, being pulled to safety.

Dean keeps replaying it in his mind, stunned. He wouldn’t have guessed Cas was that strong. Not many men are. But to be an omega — especially an omega from New-fucking-Eden — and lift a _carriage—_

What the _hell?_

To top it off, once they’d all remembered they were in the middle of a damn fight and _finished_ it, he went over to find Cas stripped down to his undershirt, like it was no big deal, pressing his shirt to a bullet wound.

Again — what the _hell_?

And don’t even get him _started_ on their fight in the carriage.

Anyway, Dean spent the day thinking about it, thinking about how Cas plays submissive and clueless one minute, self-conscious about his goddamn dress, and then he’s stripping and saving lives and staring Dean in the eye and _daring_ him the next; then he thought about how Cas kept on about the whole bedding ordeal, about how Benny thought Dean was glowing this morning, how maybe Dean actually _was._

And then he thought about yesterday, when he wondered if maybe the townspeople had some kind of plot in mind when they sent Castiel, which led him to wondering if Benny was _right_.

Maybe Dean’s thinking with the wrong head.

He eats his dinner, mentally rewatching Cas lift that carriage with his bare hands.

And he wonders if maybe it isn’t _feelings_ he should be worried about getting hurt.

“What do you make of him?” he asks, once dinner’s over and he’s followed Benny to the tavern next door for a nightcap.

“Castiel?”

“Yeah.”

“Seems alright. More than, after what he did today.”

Dean nods slowly.

“Yeah. Yeah, that was, uh. Something.”

Benny gives him a weird look.

“Somethin’ on your mind, chief?”

Dean hesitates.

“Honestly? Yeah. Things all kinda just . . . happened at once, but — he’s beautiful,” Dean says bluntly, staring hard at his beer. “Storybook pretty. Isn’t he?”

Benny looks surprised, though amusement quickly filters in.

“Well, yeah. No denyin’ that. Not sure it’s such a good thing in the long run, but the whole guard thinks you lucked out, with this one.”

“Right? Kinda thought so, too. Felt bad about it, but. He’s just — gorgeous. Had to have been the most beautiful omega in the town — would have had his pick of mates. In fact, all the single alphas were probably pissed off as hell when they decided to give him to me.”

Benny gives him a wary look.

“Must have been. What’s it matter?”

Dean shrugs.

“It’s weird, don’t you think? Why _would_ they give him to me? New Eden hates us. If they thought they could tell us to go fuck ourselves, they would. They wouldn’t hand over the most sought-after omega in town if they didn’t have to.”

Benny frowns.

“You think they’ve got an angle.”

Dean shrugs.

“He’s fucking gorgeous, Benny. And you didn’t have to spend all day and night practically scenting him. Wouldn’t surprise me if they thought he could seduce me.” He grimaces. “Think he might be _trying_ to. He kept doing shit, and even though I kinda thought of this yesterday, I — jeez, I don’t know. Part of me was kinda falling for it. But after today — you know, I think it’s gotta be an act.”

Benny grimaces, thoughtful.

“Seduce you into _what_?”

“I don’t know? Could be innocent. Maybe they’re romantics up there, think if I fall in love with him, I’ll nix this whole dumb tradition when I’m King.”

“Even as King, I don’t know that you could, chief. Council’s pretty insistent. Even a lot o’ the people like it, think it serves New Eden right.”

“That was like, two-hundred years ago,” Dean mutters. “Maybe they don’t do that shit anymore.”

“’Course they don’t, not with the surprise audits. Anyway, they could make it stop, if they fought it.”

“They have,” Dean points out grimly.

“Oh, but that was different. They were fightin’ for the their right to murder their own people. Day they so much as ask about protecting these girls they send off instead of sacrificing ‘em for the rest o’ the town is the day Winchester stops takin’ ‘em.”

“ _They_ don’t know that.”

Benny shrugs.

“Well, ain’t that the point? Gotta be sincere. Honestly, from what I’ve heard the auditor tell, if they weren’t so scared of us, you’d still have stonings in the town square every time an unmated girl let a boy hold her damn hand. Ain’t none of them really give a damn about the girls.”

Dean thinks of the people at the house, how none of them bid Castiel so much as a goodbye. But he went off for a little while; there was _someone,_ wasn’t there?

Then again, maybe that was a setup. Maybe Dean was supposed to feel sorry for him, let his guard down.

“Sounds like they’re pretty awful,” he says slowly, and Benny nods.

“It sure does.”

“Maybe they don’t want us to stop taking girls,” Dean continues, eyeing the pale amber liquid in his glass. “Maybe they want revenge.”

Benny cocks his head, staring at him for a moment.

“You think Castiel’s gonna . . .”

Dean shrugs.

“I don’t know. Just — you saw him lift that carriage, and then he used his shirt to staunch the blood, like it was nothing. And that’s the thing with him, Benny. He’s just — well, fucking adorable one second, and then he’s a — a stubborn badass the next. It doesn’t add up.

“Does sound weird when you put it like that,” Benny says, though he sounds cautious. “’Course, maybe he’s just adjusting? We’re all strangers, takin’ him to some unfamiliar place. It’ll take a while for him to get comfortable, ‘specially if he doesn’t know what you’re expecting from him.”

“Yeah. Could be.” Dean clears his throat, lifting his glass. “I’m probably just bein’ paranoid.”

Benny shakes his head, smiling.

“Hey, never hurts. But maybe you could find a line _between_ thinkin’ he’s after your blood and fallin’ in love with him?

Dean snorts.

“Yeah, alright. I’ll see what I can do.”

Still, Benny’s got one thing right.

It never hurts to be paranoid.

Dean does not join him for dinner — not that he’s invited — and Cas’s enjoyment of his meal is effectively ruined by lingering anger and sensible terror at how Dean’s going to retaliate.

Whatever happened to behaving himself? If Dean _does_ decide to kill him and go back to New Eden for a new one, all that gets Cas is _dead._

And while earlier, Cas was high on righteous fury and adrenaline, enough that he thought it didn’t matter one way or the other — sanity has returned. He doesn’t want to die over something as stupid as not being able to keep his mouth shut. Anna probably _is_ alive, probably _is_ still out there, and even if he never sees her again, somehow he thinks she’ll be able to keep track of him.

She’ll never forgive him if he dies before he even gets to the castle.

He creeps downstairs to ask for a cup of tea once he’s done eating, not sure if Dean will deal with him tonight or tomorrow but wanting something for his nerves either way. It was uncomfortable at first, wearing these clothes — especially given how Dean’s guard stared at him this morning — but now, he feels vaguely emboldened. Without getting close to him, everyone seems to assume he’s a beta.

It feels very freeing.

They tell him someone will bring his tea up to him, and once he gives his thanks, he climbs back up the stairs to his room.

He meets Dean at the top.

Dean stiffens, staring at him in that same steely, inscrutable way from earlier, and despite the temptation to stare right back, Cas lowers his eyes.

“Hello, Dean,” he murmurs.

“Castiel.” Dean nods. “Have everything you need?”

It’s asked in a much less friendly way than the last several times.

Cas feels a little sick.

“Yes. Thank you.” He hesitates. “My room is very nice. Very — comfortable. Thank you.”

Dean nods, then starts to move past him.

“Dean,” Cas says quickly, turning with him. Dean stops, glancing back at him. “I’m sorry about earlier. Truly.”

Dean studies him for a moment, and then he smiles slightly, though it doesn’t meet his eyes.

“It’s fine, Cas. Don’t worry about it.”

He heads down the stairs without another word.

Cas gets into the carriage on his own, feeling increasingly foolish for not being able to ride, and while the novel is a nice — albeit confusing — respite, the day is long and unnervingly quiet. He tries to join everyone for dinner, and several of the guards make an effort to include him, but Dean is quiet. Gone is the oddly-mannered prince Cas dealt with the first night; Dean doesn’t speak to him once, and though Cas swears he feels his eyes on him while he’s conversing with one of the others, he never manages to catch him.

It’s unsettling. Cas wonders if he’ll be given an attic nook again, only let out when Dean summons him to his bedchamber.

(This is, of course, the only reason Cas is concerned over it, as well as the only reason he has significantly more trouble sleeping than he did the first night.)

They’re not the longest three days of his life, but they’re close, and he’s barely even relieved when the city comes into view. He’s grateful to be in the carriage once they get into it, though; Lawrence is massive, so full of people and buildings the castle practically blends into it. It’s so far removed from anything Cas has experienced before, there’s a point at which he becomes enough overwhelmed he has to lean back against the carriage seat and close his eyes, taking deep breaths to stave off panic.

He couldn’t have imagined a place like this if he’d tried.

Eventually, they ride through the castle gate, down a long, winding cobblestone street until they come to a stop in the shadow of the castle doors.

Cas waits. He doesn’t dare get out until he’s told to.

It feels like an eternity before at last the door opens, and he straightens, trying not to look too petrified as a petite redhead pokes her head in.

“Hiya. Castiel, right?”

He nods, not quite trusting himself to speak, and she sticks out a hand.

“Charlie. How do you feel about stretching your legs? Because your room is up six flights of stairs,” she says apologetically, without waiting for a response.

“That’s fine. Although I hope there’s a bath at the end,” he adds without thinking, and she chuckles.

“You bet. Some dinner, too.”

“Oh. Uh. Will I need to get dressed . . .?”

A shadow falls across her face, though she keeps smiling.

“Ah, no. Actually, you’ll take meals in your room while you’re here. But room service is delicious,” she tacks on cheerfully. “And you’re really not missing much.”

It’s just as well, he supposes. He has no idea about Lawrencian customs, and he’s bound to embarrass himself. Anyway, they’re at least the same in that Cas is not appropriate company for anyone, and he’s long since grown used to that.

“That sounds nice,” he says, and with an awkward smile, she steps back, offering him a hand down.

It’s not necessary, but like with Dean, he doesn’t want to offend her, so he accepts it, even though she’s probably half a foot shorter than him.

“Yikes,” she says, once he’s out. “You looked smaller in there.”

Cas grits his teeth.

“I am very large, yes.”

Her eyes widen

“Oh, no, no, that — I didn’t mean to say you were _big,_ just, you know, bigger than we expected!”

He lifts a brow.

“Are you suggesting everything else is in order?”

Charlie blinks, then laughs.

“ _That,_ ” she says. “We definitely weren’t expecting that.”

Cas isn’t sure what she means, but then she claps her hands together.

“Right, well, let’s go find your bedchamber. Someone’ll bring your stuff, so don’t worry about it.”

Cas hesitates, glancing back at the book he was reading. It doesn’t technically belong to him, and he’s worried he won’t get to finish it if he doesn’t . . . well, steal it.

He can give it back later, he reasons.

Charlie follows his gaze, then hums.

“Ooh, that one’s pretty good. A _little_ clean for my tastes — written for young omegas, and all that — but solid fluff.”

Cas wouldn’t have said it was clean, at all — he’s starting to think the ‘missing scenes’ are, in fact, scenes of _intimacy,_ though that hardly makes sense in a book written for omegas to enjoy — but he nods politely.

“You should go ahead and bring it with you. Reading in the bath is the best.”

She waits expectantly, so Cas picks it up off the seat and off they go.

If Cas thought the rooms at the inns were nice, they’re shabby little closets compared to what awaits him in Winchester Castle.

“This is it?” he asks, and Charlie nods, walking him over to a row of windows twice his height, where she shows him how to operate the drapes.

“Don’t pull from this angle,” she warns him. “They’ll come down on your head and you’ll either have to fight your way out or call for help.”

“Alright,” he says, giving the heavy velvet brocade a suspicious look. “I’ll remember that.”

The room is enormous, the bed big enough for at least four people, in Cas’s opinion, dressed with half a dozen pillows and the plushest looking duvet he’s ever seen. There’s a section of the room, the size of one of the inn rooms all on its own, with a writing desk and several bookcases. The walls are white wooden panels, adorned with intricately carved moulding and wainscoting throughout, and there’s two massive armoires on another wall. In yet another corner, there’s a small dining area, catty corner to a pretty, peach-stoned fireplace.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, and Charlie beams.

“Renovations on the castle took decades, but it was totally worth it, right? Every modern convenience you can think of.” She grins at him, sly. “Including running water.”

Cas licks his lips.

“But you still have to heat it.”

The grin widens.

“Not in Winchester Castle you don’t.”

“Incredible,” he marvels, and she nods vigorously.

“Yup. And, you know — anything you can think of that’d make you more comfortable, just ask. I know the whole situation is kind of . . . blech,” she says, making a face, “But if you want something, go ahead and ask.”

“Alright. That’s very kind of you.”

“Well, it probably won’t be me you’re asking,” she says, looking a little sad about it. “They’ll assign you a maid. But she’ll pass it on to whoever handles the kind of stuff you ask about, and if it’s possible, they’ll make it happen.”

He nods, then hesitates.

“More novels?” he asks, and she snaps her fingers.

“Ooh, _that_ I will definitely handle. I already have a list.”

He smiles, and she smiles back, then straightens.

“Oh! Let me show you the bell system.”

Charlie shows him how to keep adding hot water to the — _huge —_ bathtub once it gets cold, and he recklessly spends an _hour and a half_ in there, novel carefully held in his dry hand, before he puts on his last clean pair of traveling pajamas and rings for dinner.

He half-expects to be scolded for wanting dinner in his pajamas, but the maid doesn’t bat an eye, wishing him a pleasant meal and sadly informing him the book he’s reading ends on a cliffhanger.

Cas feels a little betrayed by that, but not enough to stop reading while he eats.

A part of him does wonder _why_ Dean’s guard was carrying supposed omega novels with them, but then he tastes the steaming hot leek and potato chowder and he forgets all about it.

The entire meal is like that, rich without being too rich, and certainly containing much more complex flavors than anything Cas is accustomed to. He eats everything they brought him, nearly making himself sick, and then crawls into the bed to finish his book.

He swears he feels his body _melt_ as he settles in, the mattress like some sort of perfect, gentle hug, and the creamy white sheets so soft he wishes he could have half a dozen nightgowns made out of the same material. The pillow cradles his head perfectly, and Cas lies there, staring almost drunkenly at the ceiling of the navy canopy while he simply _feels_ being in the bed.

He thinks Dean could throw open the door right now and demand to bed him, and Cas would be fine with it, so long as he still got to spend the night here.

_Is_ that why the room is so nice, he wonders? He imagined a scenario where the prince would summon him to The Bed, Cas would submit to his attentions, and then Cas would return to wherever they stowed him. Maybe the prince visits him, instead? That would explain the sheer bliss that is the bed, at least. Dean would hardly want to visit him if he were sleeping on a dungeon cot.

Whatever the reason, Cas decides he doesn’t care.

He falls asleep without finishing his book, clean and sated and unexpectedly content.

Three days after they get home, one of the maids tells Dean that Cas was asking about him.

It’s grim confirmation of Dean’s worst fears.

He’s been deliberately pretending Cas doesn’t exist, just to see how Cas would react — because if Cas were really just an innocent omega, caught in the crossfire of New Eden’s rebellion and Winchester’s crushing of it, he would be _delighted_ to have Dean ignore him; and forget that lame-ass excuse about, ‘oh, I just want to know what to expect.’ Dean already told him, at least two weeks. _At least._

Cas asking after three days?

Well, you can’t exactly seduce someone you can’t see, can you? Omega wiles don’t work on absent alphas, and that’s just a fucking fact.

No, this just makes it clear that the worst-case scenario he was worried about the whole damn trip home is exactly the one he's working with. Cas wants to lure him into his orbit so Dean’ll lose his head over his stupid blue eyes and soft dark locks and dumb, gravelly voice and utterly sinful thighs and cute little fucking head tilts and _then,_ when he’s got Dean right where he wants him — madly in love and blindly devoted to his every dastardly whim — Cas is gonna look him in the eye and _murder his ass._

Except he’s not, because Dean’s not as dumb as he looks, and no way in hell is he letting it happen.

So when Cas asks about him, Dean ignores it, wanting to see what he comes up with to pull him back in, and on day five, Donna catches him on his way back from training.

“He’s a bit cooped up, don’t-cha think?”

Dean shrugs.

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Kate told me he said he’s used to getting out every day. Was pretty distraught to hear he wasn’t allowed.” She gives him a meaningful look.

“He’s not . . . _not_ allowed.”

“Dean. You know he’s only allowed to interact with the omega servants. Even having Charlie show him his room was a risky move.”

Castle gossip is the _worst._

“Okay, what are you asking me?”

“Either take him out or figure out a way for him to go out!” she says, and points a threatening finger at him. “I swear to you, Dean, if he throws himself out the window and this castle ends up getting haunted by a wailing omega ghost—”

A chill goes down his spine.

“He’s not gonna do that, is he?” he demands, a little panicked. “When you say cooped up—”

She huffs.

“I doubt the poor kid’s gone crazy yet, but he’ll get there if you don’t do something.”

Dean relaxes, mentally kicking himself. Of course he’s not. This is all probably just an _act._

Still. If he wants to catch Cas out, maybe he needs to let him think he’s winning.

“Alright. I’ll figure something out.”

“Good.” She nods, satisfied, then narrows her eyes. “By the by. Was talking to Jodes earlier . . .”

Dean swallows.

“Yeah?”

“Have you really not told the council yet?”

Which — yeah, maybe Dean’s had some other reasons for wanting Cas to stay in his room.

“Uh. No. I mean. It doesn’t really matter, right? So long as I’m makin’ some heirs.”

She hums.

“And are you?”

“Not — not right now, no.”

“Mhm.”

She reaches up, patting his cheek with shrewd eyes.

“Get him out of his room before you go visiting it, alright? Or there’ll be more than just your king and council to answer to.”

Dean nods, trying not to feel guilty, because if Donna only knew that Cas was plotting his demise, she’d have very different things to say.

He almost tells her, but he knows Benny didn’t put too much stock in the theory, and he’s going to need more proof before he can convince everyone else.

Still, Dean trusts his gut on this one. He tends to have an instinct for this kind of thing.

And Cas? Is _definitely_ up to no good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild violence/injury: En route, the party comes across highwaymen who have accosted another traveling party. A fight between the guard and the highwaymen ensues, but a woman from the other party has been shot and pinned down by a carriage. There is some description of bleeding from the gunshot wound.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Cas in women's undergarments (think like an embellished tap pant/frilly boxers), implied past Dean in women's undergarments, sexism (Dean noting the room is decorated with 'women' in mind, even though decor has no gender, some stereotypes about omegas/gender roles, that sort of thing), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> (Curious about what Cas might look like in pretty yellow drawers, like the ones mentioned in the chapter? [This](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/post/617028205279379456/diminuel-cas-in-drawers-was-requested-cas-in) amazing thing [Diminuel](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/) drew may help!! :DD)
> 
> Thank you very much for reading ♡

The first day, Cas wakes with the dawn, as he always does.

And then he promptly rolls over and goes back to sleep.

In fact, when the maid — Kate, she tells him with a smile — brings his breakfast, Cas just moves the tray from the table back to the bed, and there he stays for nearly the entire day. He finishes his book, disappointed indeed, and randomly selects one of the few dusty novels from the bookcase by the escritoire.

It’s older, a little less fast-paced — and less racy, if he’s being honest — than the ones Dean found for him, but Cas enjoys it nonetheless. He enjoys all of it, lying in bed and ringing for coffee and tea, having tiny sandwiches for lunch with little square sweet cakes and a vase of _flowers_ on the tray, which he leaves on the table, and eating dinner propped up against the pillows with his book still in hand. He has another bath, luxuriating in the near-steaming water until his fingerpads turn soft and wrinkly and he thinks he’s replaced the whole bath twice over. He puts his pajamas from before back on — no one mentioned the tailor, yet, and Cas only has what was still clean from the journey — and gets right back in bed.

He stays there until his eyes start drooping and he dampens the candles and goes to sleep.

The second day, Cas takes breakfast at his table, which he drags over to the windows. He carefully opens the drapes, per Charlie’s instructions, and is pleased to find he has a view of the grounds and a forest beyond, rather than the bustle of the city.

He can see the gardens from here; they seem to stretch nearly from the castle to the forest, and though he’s too high up to see much detail, there’s a maze of hedges and an enormous, sparkling fountain, and an abundance of color that suggests _flowers._

Cas was never permitted to plant flowers in his garden.

He touches the white and pink petals in his lunch arrangement from yesterday, wondering if they came from the castle gardens — wondering if someone will let him walk through them.

When Kate comes to collect his dishes, Cas asks her about them.

“They’re the most beautiful gardens in the kingdom,” she informs him, pausing at the window to admire the view. “Though I hear yours’ll be almost as nice.”

Cas blinks.

“Mine?” He echoes, and Kate falters, looking embarrassed.

“Oh. Just . . . later, when . . .” She trails off, giving him an uncomfortable smile. “I should get back to work.”

It’s a blatant evasion, but Cas doesn’t see anything he can do about it, so he nods.

“Of course. Thank you for breakfast.”

He doesn’t miss the relief in her face.

“Sure. As always, ring if you need something.”

She leaves, not quite meeting his eyes.

Cas stares down at the gardens for a long time after she’s gone.

With lunch comes a delivery.

“Are these from . . . Charlie?” Cas asks once he’s recovered from the shock of the half-dozen maids carrying books in.

“Yes, sir,” Kate says with a wink. “If it’s worth reading, she or Donna know about it.” He’s disappointed that Charlie herself has not reappeared, but when he asks about it, the maids exchange uncomfortable looks.

“The thing is, she wasn’t supposed to have brought you to your room in the first place,” Kate explains awkwardly.

Cas frowns.

“Why not?”

“She’s not an omega.”

It takes a second for Cas to understand. He supposes he should be grateful for that much, given what he was used to in New Eden, but he’s not.

Charlie was very nice. She’d seemed happy to see him. While he typically doesn’t bother thinking in terms of fairness . . . this seems very unfair.

“I see.” He forces himself to focus on the way the books fill the shelves. He’s not sure how long he’ll be in Lawrence, but even if it proves difficult for him to quicken, he may not finish all of them by the time he leaves. “Please tell her I said thank you, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Of course.”

They depart when the task is finished, and Cas takes a full hour to choose a book — he’s never had so many choices before, and it makes a decision unexpectedly difficult — after which he spends the day reading.

Still, he’s not entirely focused. Slow spots in the novel find him drifting off, wondering about the rest of his time here. _Will_ he have time to finish all of these books? Even if he does, is that a good thing? Is he going to spend every single day reading and napping and drinking coffee? Obviously, it’s a pleasure to do so in the short-term, given that he’s never had the opportunity, but if he thinks of doing that for _weeks,_ let alone months — it makes him feel a little ill.

And if he’s being very honest — the fact that he won’t see Charlie again weighs on him. It’s not as if he’d had a strong expectation — Cas wasn’t stupid enough to expect much at all, in this situation — but he must have been more hopeful than he’d thought. What’s more, Anna would spend at least a little time with him every day in New Eden; but Anna’s no longer with him, and while he likes Kate and the other maids, they’re generally busy doing their jobs.

They’re not there to be companions to him, that much is clear.

Dean had said he wouldn’t come to call for two weeks, but once he does — is that all the company Cas will get? Cas doesn’t even know how long it takes, or if Dean will call on him every night; what if it’s _not_ very long? What if he leaves immediately after? Dean’s visits may not be that dissimilar to Kate dropping off his meals or cleaning for a few minutes. A part of him wonders if he should stop tidying up after himself so she’ll have to stay longer, but a greater part of him feels guilty about unnecessarily adding to her workload.

It’s not that Cas especially _wants_ Dean’s company, but as he sits in this room and begins to realize he doesn’t even know if he’ll be let _out_ of it, it occurs to him that he may get so desperate he doesn’t care.

But Dean mentioned riding, that Cas should learn; was that a lie? Why _would_ he lie about that? And if he didn’t, that strongly indicates Cas _will_ end up going outside, at least. Surely he won’t be trapped here for months or even years on end, with only books and the prince’s attentions to keep him?

This bedchamber would be a much more comfortable prison than he thought he might get, but it would still be a prison, and only now that he’s here does the difference between what he’s used to and what he might now endure become clear. Cas is _used_ to isolation, but he’s also used to his sister’s affection. He’s used to getting up and working, walking the rough forest path to and from the Adler fields, and even if he was alone then, he was at least productive.

It’s horrifying, to think he might have taken anything for granted; this is not a dank cell beneath the castle, and he wants to be grateful for that, but by the time he goes to sleep that night, his stomach is in knots and it takes him far too long to quiet his mind enough to fall asleep.

The next day, he asks after Dean. Two weeks, Dean had said — but that was with regards to the bedding. Dean spoke of other things, things which might not _necessitate_ his presence, but could include it nonetheless.

Cas hopes so. He has questions, and though he knows he could be borrowing trouble, he thinks Dean might be willing to answer them.

Dean considers surprising Cas, but he’s not totally without manners, and a part of him is just as curious to see how Cas prepares for his visit as he is to see how Cas handles an unexpected one.

He tells one of the maids to let Cas know he’ll be by around two, and ten minutes beforehand — the best of both worlds — he knocks on Cas’s door.

Cas opens it seconds later.

“Dean,” he says, and then reddens, brow creasing. “I mean — hello. Hello, Dean.”

For a moment, Dean is speechless, helpless but to stare. He’s spent the last three days trying to untangle the conspiracy of Cas’s presence here, and during that time, he’d somehow forgotten just how beautiful Cas actually was.

Which was _stupid;_ New Eden’s whole fucking plan hinges on it. Of _course_ he’s that beautiful.

Dean clears his throat, forcing himself to look away from big, earnest blue eyes and instead glancing around the room. It’s pretty nice; the remodels happened after the tradition with New Eden started, and he can tell it was designed with women in mind, light and airy, with calming blues and whites and florals. He’s almost positive it backs to the garden and forest, and he has the depressing thought that the whole thing is designed to keep a captive cheerful without showing them what they’re missing out on.

He shakes it away; that might have been true for his dad’s mom and the women who came before her, but Cas is different. Dean’s had a few days to think it over, and he’s now convinced that nothing actually happened to that other chick at all. Nope, Cas presented and the town probably thought it was a blessing from the heavens. In fact, they’ve probably been training him to lift goddamn carriages ever since, getting him all set to murder Dean with his bare hands.

Which — if they think Dean won’t expect it from an omega, they’re stupid. He’s a prince, sure, but he’s also a soldier, and he knows how to see through a trap. And this? This has _trap_ written all over it.

“Hey, Castiel. How are you settling in?”

Cas looks vaguely unhappy for a second before his expression evens out. He’s probably pissy Dean used his full name, had been delighted to encourage what he thought was a desire for intimacy and is now frustrated Dean’s pulling back.

Dean mentally pats himself on the shoulder.

“Well. Very well. My bedchamber is lovely. And — Charlie made sure I had plenty of books,” he adds, gesturing to the bookcase, then mumbles, “She was very nice.”

Dean’s not sure what exactly Cas is trying to communicate with that, but he files it away for later nonetheless. Honestly, Charlie wasn’t supposed to bring Cas up here that day, but Dean wanted to get her opinion on him.

(Her opinion, which could basically be summed up as ‘are you kidding me right now?’, was not useful.)

“Yeah, she’s got good taste. Should be a nice variety.”

Cas nods.

“It is. It’s very nice. Everything is . . . very nice.” Cas licks his lips, straightening. “I waited on lunch, in case you were hungry?”

If Dean weren’t wise to his plot, he might have been touched by the gesture; but Cas’s halting, uncertain tone is at odds with the way he stares at Dean, intent and clearly waiting to see if his wiles are working, and Dean just barely refrains from rolling his eyes. Cas’ll figure out he’s not that dumb soon enough.

“Sure. I can pretty much always eat,” Dean answers graciously, and notes the flash of relief on Cas’s face.

“Alright.” Cas glances toward the table, though he doesn’t move, and after a moment, Dean starts walking toward it. Cas follows, waiting for him to sit first, and as Dean unfolds his napkin, he considers how this fits into Cas’s plans. Most likely, Cas’s weird submissive behavior is meant to keep Dean off his guard, to train him to expect Cas to stay passive until it’s time for him to strike.

There's a look of consternation when Dean reaches for Cas's plate, but then Cas quickly lowers his eyes, waiting patiently. Dean can see the tension in his shoulders, though, and he has to fight a smirk.

So Mr. Badass Assassin doesn’t like playing helpless. Dean can relate.

“So, what did you wanna talk to me about? Or did you just miss me?” he jokes, watching carefully for Cas’s reaction, and he’s not disappointed. Those shoulders notch higher, panic flitting across Cas’s face, followed by uncertainty and resolve. Cas doesn’t know how to answer that, doesn’t want to overplay his hand or offend Dean, probably.

“It’s nice to see you again,” he finally says, and Dean snorts.

“That’s a no, then,” he says, and Cas’s expression becomes a peculiar mix of frustration and anxiety.

“It’s not,” he says awkwardly. “And much as I appreciate what you told me — at the Inn — I was wondering about . . . other things.”

That throws Dean. _Other_ things? What other things?

Cas takes a deep breath, glancing warily at Dean before pressing on.

“You’d mentioned — a tailor? And riding. Learning to ride, that is.”

Dean nods slowly; he did, and he also forgot that he mentioned those things, but while the tailor question makes sense, the riding thing is raising some flags.

Because Dean’s thought about that, too, and he’s determined that there’s no way Cas doesn’t know how to ride a horse. They’ve been training him up to _murder_ Dean, for God’s sake; it’s highly unlikely they overlooked basic means of transportation.

And yet, here Cas is, asking about lessons. Is this about escape? Is he hoping to figure out his way around the stables and grounds, for after he’s strangled Dean post-orgasm and left his cooling corpse in the bed? Or is that where he _plans_ to kill Dean? Is he hoping a besotted Dean will take him out riding all the time, and just when Dean’s starry-eyed and ready to propose in the radiant glow of the sunset, Cas’ll knife him in the ribs and watch him gasp his last with no one around to witness it?

And while some might argue that Cas already had an opportunity to kill him, Dean’s thought of that, and there’s an obvious explanation: New Eden doesn’t just want him _dead._ New Eden wants him to _suffer._ Clearly, there’s an emotional element to their vengeance; Cas wants to seduce Dean and then betray him, smug in the knowledge that Dean lay there dying with a broken heart.

So _maybe_ he’s thinking Dean will _like_ showing him how to do this, thinks they’ll take cozy, romantic afternoons to ride and all of Dean’s alpha instincts will kick in with the sweet, hapless little omega as their target.

Which — _ha._ Dean will ‘teach’ him how to ride, alright, but only so he can keep an eye on him.

“Yeah, sorry; been busy since we got back. I’ll try and get the tailor in to see you tomorrow. As for the riding — I’d be happy to teach you.”

Cas looks unmistakably relieved, though he’s clearly fighting hard to stay neutral. Dean’s a little puzzled why he’s not playing cute, here — Dean saw firsthand how capable he is of _that —_ but maybe Cas thought he’d have to do some more coaxing and eyelash-batting to get what he wanted.

“How long will that take?”

Dean blinks.

“Uh. Depends on how fast a learner you are.” It was a weird question, and Dean’s not sure what the angle is. For a moment, he swears Cas seems frustrated, but then an idea hits him. “Hey — how ‘bout we go out this afternoon?”

Frustration melts away; Cas blinks at him for a few seconds, clearly taken aback, and then he swallows.

“I’d like that,” he says quietly, still looking at Dean, and Dean grins back at him.

“Alright. Let’s finish eating and we can go.”

Cas is _really_ good at pretending not to know how to ride a horse, but the speed with which he ‘catches on’ only lends credence to Dean’s theory.

Unfortunately, the fact that Dean’s alpha instincts _do_ get a little restless is a point in favor of his other theory, and even though he knows better and can totally suppress them, it’s annoying. The damn things have him jumping every time Cas wobbles or his horse turns funny, and he can’t seem to stop hovering, watching Cas’s determined management of the reins with an acute sense of paranoia.

Still, he does his best to ignore the very real concern he keeps trying to feel for the guy, and when two hours have passed and he sees Cas shut his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose, brow damp with sweat, Dean tells himself he’s only suggesting a break because he’s bored and tired, too.

“You’re doing great,” Dean says, a little goading, and Cas gives him a puzzled frown.

“Thank you,” he says, somewhat suspiciously, and yeah, okay, maybe Dean wants to tone it down a little. “Do you mean to continue, after the break, or . . .?”

It’s still bright out, but the sun is starting to make it’s way down toward the horizon, and if Cas really were a beginner, there wouldn’t be much point in keeping him out here any longer.

Dean leans back in his perch against the tree, taking a swig from his canteen.

“Nah. That’s enough for today.”

Cas nods.

“When will the next time be?” he asks, and there’s something careful about the way he looks straight ahead, to the distant buildings of the city.

Dean studies him, then shrugs.

“Day after tomorrow, probably.”

“Alright.”

They’re quiet for a couple of minutes, and Dean’s about ready to suggest they head back to the castle when Cas turns to him.

“What about the gardens?”

Dean freezes.

“Uh. What gardens?”

“Kate — one of the maids — told me the castle gardens were the most beautiful in Winchester.”

“Oh,” Dean says, relieved. “Yeah. Without a doubt.”

Cas hesitates.

“She said mine will be almost as nice.”

_Damn._

“Yeah. When, uh. Between heirs, and after you’re — you know, done. There’s an estate in the country - the people call it the, uh, the Omega Gardens. You’ll stay there. And yeah, the gardens are almost as nice as they are here.”

Cas nods, brow creased.

“Alright. Well, I haven’t seen the gardens here, but — I’m partial to gardens. That will be nice.”

There’s a shred of doubt in the statement, and Dean starts feeling bad for him for about three seconds before he remembers that _yeah, right,_ Cas knows he’s not ever going there; he’s just lulling Dean into a false sense of security with this whole ‘oh dear, what is to become of me’ shtick until it’s time for murder.

“In any case, thank you for the lesson,” Cas continues, then looks down. When he speaks again, his voice is strangely small, considering its depth and roughness. “It was nice to get out. I, uh. I’m used to going out.”

_I’m sure you are,_ Dean almost retorts, because he can totally picture Cas, jogging around the town square as part of his stamina training, all the alphas (and probably betas and omegas) in town coming out to swoon over those stupid thighs.

He bites his tongue, though, because he has a better idea.

“Really? Well, how about I find a place for you to garden here?”

Cas draws back a little, startled.

Which — _serves him right._

“I don’t think your gardeners will want me disturbing anything,” he says slowly, and Dean gives him a wide smile.

“Nah, don’t worry. I’ll find you your own plot somewhere, so you can do whatever you want.” Feigning a gardening hobby should at least distract Cas from his murder plans, at any rate.

But the look Cas gives him is far from vexed or resentful; his eyes are a little wide, disbelieving and tentatively _pleased_.

“Would you?”

Dean tries not to frown.

“Sure, no problem.”

Cas’s eyes soften, and to Dean’s surprise, he leans toward him, reaching out and lightly touching his arm.

“Thank you, Dean,” he says solemnly.

And for a moment, Dean’s just — dumbfounded. Cas isn’t just looking at him, he’s _l_ _ooking_ at him, and Dean swears the sunlight starts refracting funny, because suddenly Cas seems to glow, warm and vibrant before him, and Dean’s insides do a pathetic sort of smooshing thing between his ribs at the sight.

A breeze carelessly flits by, stirring the dark hair on Cas’s head, and oh _God,_ he even _smells_ happy.

Dean just _stares_ for another moment, unconsciously scenting the air between them while Cas stares back, serious and grateful, those goddamn eyes blue and endless and — and —

And then abruptly, Dean remembers.

Jesus, Cas really is an incredible actor. He might miss his mark sometimes, but he’s still feeling things out and he’s probably been preparing for this for years; as much as Dean hates to admit it, maybe he needs to try a little harder to keep his head, because just now . . . he kind of lost it.

He forces himself to smile, disturbed.

“Yeah. Happy to be of service.”

Whatever; he’ll catch Cas out, one way or another.

In the mean time, Dean can be patient.

Dean is very confusing.

He’s very _accommodating_ — so far at least — but he’s also confusing. Cas wonders if sleep deprivation somehow muddled his mind, when he first met Dean, because while Dean remains suspiciously agreeable, there’s an edge to him now. Cas might not have trusted the geniality and charm at the time, but he recognized it was there.

Now, though — now, something’s missing.

Maybe it’s all in his head, though; Dean is sacrificing much of his own time, teaching Cas to ride, and he’s going to allow Cas a garden, and the tailor is coming to visit him today. Especially given his original expectations, there’s not much he can reasonably complain about.

And _yet_.

Dean watched him yesterday, a hard look in his eyes; Cas doesn’t think he’s mistaken about that. The prince’s words are friendly and his smiles free, but something about the way he looks at Cas now leaves him chilled.

Which — Cas noted the change after the argument the day of the carriage incident, but he hadn’t expected it to be permanent. It frustrates him, because he stands by what he said, and a part of him would rather Dean punish him openly and then get over it. And maybe he still will, but given a choice, Cas would feel more at ease with — well, with the man he shared a room with the first night in the inn.

In the meantime, though, he _is_ grateful. He’s decided it’s better not to think too hard about the future — about how alone he might be at the Gardens, even if it’s reassuring to know he won’t be killed or left on the streets — and in terms of the present, he can be sure of fresh air and a little work.

And company. Even if he’s not sure, yet, the value of Dean’s company — especially with the odd, unspoken tension between them — he wouldn’t give it up, at this point.

The tailor arrives at three, and where Cas was expecting some severe, well-groomed older gentleman, Pamela looks no more than ten years his senior and is wearing a scarlet dress that would get her ten lashes, at least, if she wore it in New Eden.

(It’s a very handsome red dress, Cas thinks, and immediately feels bad about it.)

Anyway, Pamela is beautiful, with long, curly dark hair that’s only barely pinned back, and she subjects him to a lengthy, somewhat uncomfortable onceover as soon as she’s crossed the threshold.

“Lucky Prince,” she says over her shoulder, and Cas looks beyond the audacious red dress to find Dean looking grumpy in the doorway.

“Dean,” he says, surprised. “I didn’t know to expect you.”

Dean scowls.

“Yeah, me either.”

“You know the rules, cupcake,” Pamela says, and then—

Withdraws a measure tape from her _bosoms._

Cas turns as red as her dress, carefully trying to avoid looking at them, but undeniably drawn now that he knows they house such material objects.

They're very nice bosoms, at any rate. He’s a little torn between admiration and envy; if he’d been a girl, he’d have been lucky to have her figure. In New Eden, men aren’t supposed to be looking at things like figures, anymore than women are supposed to be showing them off, but everyone knows it matters, anyway.

Dean clears his throat, and when Cas glances up, he looks a little disbelieving. Cas throws a guilty glance towards Pamela.

“Apologies. You have a very nice figure,” he says honestly, and she throws back her head and laughs. Behind her, Dean’s jaw drops.

“Maybe they were right to make you come with me, Dean.” She winks at Cas. “And no need to be sorry. I usually have to shell out for drinks at the tavern to get that kind of flattery.”

“No, you don’t,” Dean interjects, irritated. “And stop — stop _flirting._ ”

Pamela raises a brow.

“Touchy.” She turns more toward Cas, smiling. “Don’t mind him, angel.”

Cas tilts his head.

“How did you know I was named for an angel?”

“How does she know anything?” Dean grumbles, stalking partway into the room and shutting the door. “Hurry up so I can get back to training.”

Cas looks down. Dean’s in a poor mood today; Cas isn't sure why he felt the need to attend this appointment, but he’s sorry he had to.

“Hurry up and turn around then,” Pamela says archly, then nods at Cas. “Be a sweetheart and strip for me, would you?”

Cas colors again.

“Uh.”

She shakes her measuring tape.

“Just need to double-check my eyes.”

“Oh. Alright.”

He reaches for the buttons on his waistcoat, and Dean turns around with a huff.

“Don’t know why his maid couldn’t have chaperoned.”

Cas is confused for a moment, and then he realizes.

Of course the tailor is not an omega. Cas would have to meet with her, but he can’t do it alone.

“Thank you for making time, Dean,” he says quietly. Dean could have changed his mind, after all; Cas’s clothing is adequate, if not preferred. At this point, the tailor is an indulgence.

“No problem,” Dean mutters.

Feeling somewhat defeated, Cas finishes undressing, puzzled when Pamela lets out a low whistle.

“Well, that’s a shame.”

Cas stares hard at the ground. He’s aware of his deficiencies.

“No matter how well I dress you, it won’t compare to this.”

He blinks.

“What?”

“Pamela,” Dean snaps. “Just — take his measurements. And keep your damn hands to yourself.”

Pamela winks at Cas.

“Might have to get a little close for comfort, handsome, but it’s all part of the process.”

“Alright.”

“Stick your arms out?”

Pamela actually makes fairly quick work of his front, and the only time she actually puts her hands on him is to pinch his cheek.

“Gosh, I just can’t get over how cute you are.”

Cas frowns.

“I’m not cute.” How can he be?

“Oh, trust me, honey, you’re _very_ cute. I’d use it if I were you.”

_For what?_ Cas wonders, and then Pamela pokes his forehead.

“I need to take your back and shoulders, alright?”

He tenses, and she catches his eye.

“I’m gonna stay put and put my arms around you to do it, alright? So don’t panic, or else Dean’ll come over here and try to defend your honor.”

Dean grunts, but Cas is too relieved to be either worried or amused.

“Alright.”

It’s a little awkward, Pamela reaching around him, and Cas strongly suspects that’s not usually how it’s done, but he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Mm. And you said my figure was nice,” she remarks, vaguely admonishing, before turning to Dean. “My books?”

Dean rummages in the satchel he’s carrying for two large leather books, blindly sticking them out behind him for her to take.

“Thank you. You can get dressed now, dollface.”

Cas complies, and then Pamela goes right to the bed, perching on the edge and patting the space beside her.

“Swatches, Dean? And you can look, now.”

Dean turns with a suspicious glower, his cheeks a little red, and shuffles forward to push the bag at her.

“Make it quick,” he warns, and Pamela waves him off, flipping the book open to a page with detailed trouser sketches.

“The ones you’ve borrowed are too loose — well, except in the thighs,” she amends, patting one, “And really, almost none of those are in keeping with the city fashion.”

“Oh,” he says, at a loss.

“Now, fortunately for you, you’d look gorgeous in rags, but still — I’d rather make you the best-dressed man in town.”

Cas gives the page a nervous look, wondering if empty flattery is part of her job.

“I don’t — I don’t really know about . . . fashion.”

Despite the niceness of the dress, Cas hasn’t worn it since it was laundered, because he can tell it _isn’t_ the fashion here and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself, even in front of the maids.

“Lucky you’ve got me.” She gives him a sly grin. “I’ll take good care of you.”

Dean grunts at her, for some reason, and she winks at Cas.

“Alright. Thank you.” Another thought occurs to him. “Dean — did you want to choose something?”

Dean’s head snaps up, eyes suspicious.

“Uh. What?”

“For me to wear.”

“What? Why?”

Cas hesitates.

“Well, I don’t really see anyone but you. Or rather — no one really sees me besides you.” He looks down, remembering the extravagant white nightdress Anna had sewn for Adler’s eldest daughter’s bridal trousseau. Cas hadn’t realized what it was at first, thought it was somewhat spare for a wedding dress, and Anna had corrected him. On the other hand, Cas is not a bride, but if the point was to _appeal_ to her husband . . . “Or, uh. When the time comes — if there’s something that will make it more palatable . . .”

“What time?” Dean asks, giving him a confused look, and Cas glances right back up, incredulous.

“The, uh. When you have to -” He casts an uneasy glance at Pamela. It’s one thing to be frank with Dean, given that he’ll be the one doing the bedding, but he’s not entirely sure it’s appropriate to say in front of her.

Pamela scowls.

“Woah, now hold your horses, sweet pea. If we’re talking any kind of intimate apparel, Dean can keep his cute little nose out of it.”

“ _Intimate_ apparel?” Dean sputters, disbelief insultingly obvious.

Cas colors, stifling irritation. It’s not his fault he doesn’t know things about Lawrence. What else is he supposed to do but _ask_?

“If I’m supposed to start out unclothed, you should have said.” He clears his throat. “And given that the point would be Dean’s comfort, I don’t know why he wouldn’t make the decision.”

_“Dean's_ comf—oh, boy,” Pamela mutters. “We’ll have to work on that.”

“I don’t — you don’t have to—” Dean huffs, stopping to scrub a hand down his face. “Look, it doesn’t matter to me, alright? Order the ugliest underthings and nightclothes you can find, I’m not gonna care.”

Cas, to his own bewilderment, feels _worse_ at that, but Dean’s point has been made.

“Alright. I assume that applies to dayclothes, as well, then?”

Dean slants him an unimpressed look.

“ _Obviously._ ”

“Why doesn’t Dean go look out the window or something?” Pamela suggests, steel in her otherwise cheery tone.

Dean starts to stand, then looks indignant.

“Wait, are you putting me in _time out_?”

“Someone needs to,” she says sweetly. “Run along now.”

He purses his lips, but goes over to the window, anyway.

Cas tilts his head, looking at her. He wonders what she is to the prince, that she so casually commands him.

She glances back at him and smirks.

“Oh, I’ve known Dean since he was in diapers.”

“You were barely _out_ of them,” Dean protests from the window, and Pamela chuckles.

“True enough. I could still tell Castiel plenty of stories, though.”

“Lies,” Dean mutters, folding his arms and leaning against the wall as he turns back to the window. Cas watches him, puzzled. He sounds grumpy — he’s _been_ grumpy since he walked in the room — but despite his crossed arms, his shoulders are relaxed, stance comfortable against the wall. From Cas’s spot on the bed, he can just make out the corner of Dean’s smile.

They’re teasing each other, he realizes. Like Anna does with him, sometimes, when no one else is around.

Pamela coughs, and when he looks up, she’s smiling. He’s startled to find that _he’s_ smiling, too.

“So, some of the dandies like box pleats,” she says, tone suspiciously kind. “But it seems like a shame to cover up those hips.”

Cas blinks, fingers going to his waist.

“My hips?”

“Your hips,” she drawls, giving one of them a poke. “You could drive a priest to sin with those.”

Cas looks down at them, more confused than ever. He has sharp, narrow hips, where they ought to be wide and soft and, well, indicative of a certain usefulness.

“I don’t know why I’d want to,” he starts with, searching her face. “But they’re hardly ideal for someone of my designation.”

Pamela lifts a brow.

“I assume you’re referring to childbearing?” she says bluntly, and Cas colors.

“Uh. Yes.”

“Well, good news for you, sugar. Shape and size have nothing to do with it. Any idiot would be lucky to have you bear their children,” she adds loudly.

He follows her gaze toward the window, but Dean is completely turned away now, shoulders up.

He’s not sure he believes her on the first point, and he certainly doesn’t on the second, but it would be nice to think it won’t cause him any issues. Since Anna ran away, he’s generally tried not to think about the actual birthing of the heirs — there have been more pressing matters — but he won’t be able to ignore it forever.

Abruptly, there’s a warm, unexpectedly calloused hand on his chin, gently turning it back to face her.

“You’ll do fine, Castiel,” she says quietly. “More than fine.”

He looks down.

“I hope so.”

After a moment, she sighs.

“Alright. Look at the pictures and tell me what you think is pretty. Don’t worry about fashion. Or potential cost. Winchester owes you this much, at least.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. According to Winchester, New Eden owes _them._ If they didn’t, Cas wouldn’t be here.

On the other hand, Cas has never had nice clothes, and certainly not any he got to choose, so if this is what the kingdom of Winchester wants, he’s not going to object.

“You said I shouldn’t get pleats,” he clarifies, and she cocks her head.

“I said it’d be a shame to hide a figure like that, but anything will look good if I’ve made it to fit you.”

He nods.

“I like the pleats.”

“We’ll get you some pleats, then.” She pauses. “I couldn’t help but notice you had some drawers on.”

Cas is to spend the day embarrassed, then.

“I do.” He takes a breath, steeling himself. “If possible, I’d like to have more than the one pair.”

Cas is no stranger to having to regularly wash his clothes, and his borrowed wardrobe is more extensive than the one he left behind; still, he’s picky about his drawers, and he’s had to wash this pair out every night after his bath so they’d be dry by the morning.

Running water might make it easier, but it’s still a nuisance.

Pamela nods slowly.

“You usually wear them, then?”

Cas nods.

“Since I presented.”

Her mouth forms a silent ‘o,’ then drops into a frown.

“And you only have one pair with you?”

“Yes.”

“Dean,” she says sternly, leaning sideways to look past him. “I thought you said you’d got him clothes.”

Cas resolutely stares at the bedpost, extremely conscious of his _undergarments_ being the subject of conversation.

“I didn’t know!”

“Well, you gave him shorts, at least?”

There’s a long silence.

“I . . . don’t know?”

“You don’t _know_?”

“I just asked someone to get him clothes!” Dean says. “I didn’t — I didn’t make an itemized _list._ ”

Pamela scowls.

“Dean.”

“He should have said something!”

Cas twists, irate.

“I wasn’t exactly in a position to be _asking_ for things,” he snaps, and Dean freezes.

Frustration overtakes his defensiveness, and a chill goes down Cas’s spine as he realizes he’s done it _again._

Which — he _knows_ better. God knew he’d had to keep his mouth shut more often than not, in New Eden; he’s even less safe, here, and yet his words seem to tumble right past his lips with little regard for their audience.

“So what, you can charge headfirst into dangerous situations and rescue injured damsels, but you’re somehow too shy to ask me for something as basic as _underwear_?”

At that, Cas’s fear fades as quickly as it sprang up. He _knew_ it. He _knew_ Dean was still upset over that, that it was probably the source of all this coldness, however subtle it might be. And while the prince might have all the power here, of all the things to punish Cas for, _that_ is the least justified.

“Yes, because no one is going to _die_ if I don’t have underwear!”

Dean turns fully, stepping toward him with narrowed eyes.

“Yeah, well no one’s dying right now and it’s not stopping you from saying what’s on your mind. Which is it, Castiel?” he asks, mocking. “Are you a shy, scared little omega or can you hold your own just fucking fine?”

Cas just stares at him, stunned. He doesn’t even know how to answer that question. He’s not sure what Dean _means_ by it.

“Enough, Dean,” Pamela interjects, but Cas stands, hands curled into fists at his sides.

“I am not a _shy, scared little omega,_ ” he grits out. “What I am is someone at the mercy of what are little better than my _captors._ I might not be willing to turn a blind eye to someone else’s suffering, but nor will I risk my — my _safety,_ for the sake of frivolous comforts.”

Dean doesn’t seem to have an answer for that; instead, he just stands there, looking at Cas, gaze hard and searching.

Instinct tells Cas to lower his eyes beneath the scrutiny. He doesn’t need it to know Dean is angry right now, with _Cas_ specifically, and the sensible thing to do would be to try and soothe that anger.

Still, he keeps his eyes up, forcing himself to meet Dean’s gaze head-on.

The seconds feel like hours, and then Dean huffs, shaking his head.

“Forget the damn rules,” he mutters. “Get him whatever he wants and don’t bother me about it again.”

Without sparing another glance for either one of them, he stalks out of the room.

Pamela sits with him a few moments before giving his hand a squeeze and offering to come back tomorrow, which Cas gratefully accepts, though he suspects it’s more for her comfort than his own. He must reek of anger and frustration and _fear,_ the last feeling growing with every minute that passes.

Once the door shuts behind her, he returns to bed, piling the pillows all around himself and huddling completely beneath his blanket in the center of the makeshift nest, desperate for some kind of comfort. Even the skin on his back feels very much _there,_ an awful sense of anticipation lurking in his periphery. He’s been here four days, away from home less than two weeks, and he keeps making stupid mistakes. What’s more, no matter how bad and anxious he feels afterward, it doesn’t stop him from feeling angry.

Even now, even afraid of what kind of retaliation Dean is working up to, even ashamed — because he’s better than this, he has more _self-control_ than this — he’s still angry. It feels unjust. And he knows life is often not fair, and that people like him don’t deserve fair, to begin with, that he’s lucky just to be alive — but he can’t help himself. He’d thought he’d known what to expect from his life, even if it wasn’t much, and he’d made his peace with that. But then everything _changed._ Cas knows so very little of his future, and what he does know, he’s unprepared for. It — it’s _terrifying._ He doesn’t know if he can do it. He doesn’t know what his other options are.

And he wants — he wanted to believe things would be better. He wanted to hold on to those feelings of relief, that this wasn’t as bad as he and Anna were expecting, that the prince was not quite so monstrous as New Eden would have them all believe. He wanted to look forward to at least some aspects of his time here, to all the indulgences and luxuries of which he could now avail himself.

But now he’s just angry and afraid, and he keeps doing things to make it _worse._ Dean could cease his riding lessons, could change his mind about the garden, could still have Cas killed or sent back to New Eden, where they’d probably find a way to do away with him for exposing them to Winchester’s wrath through his failure to appease the prince.

None of the options are good. Even the option where Dean does nothing, nothing but come to Cas with coolness or carefully veiled antipathy, failing to act on his anger — that’s terrifying, too, because it means Cas can’t _re_ act.

It means Cas is just _waiting._

Of course, that’s nothing new, is it? He remembers waiting to present, praying he’d be an alpha, that he could offer his sister some kind of protection. And then he remembers waiting for the day Anna would marry, dreading it even as they both hoped their parents would give him to her as a wedding gift.

And he certainly remembers waiting, heart feeling cold and still in his breast, for the day the Prince of Winchester came to take her away for good, and the rest of his quiet, lonely life began.

Waiting is awful, and at the end of it, things seem to turn out much, much worse than you imagined. Cas doesn’t deceive himself the same thing won’t happen here.

So he hides in his nest, alternately cursing the prince and wishing for some kind of end to his misery, until Kate knocks on the door with dinner. Her friendly expression twists as she enters the room, and he knows she can probably scent his distress.

“Please leave it on the table,” he says quickly. She does, but she glances back at him, concern in her gaze.

“Are you alright?” she asks, and he looks down. It’s nice of her to care, and he appreciates it — appreciates all her kindness, since his arrival — but it also puts a lump in his throat.

“I’m fine. It . . . it was a long day.”

“Oh.” She hesitates, then reaches for a satchel slung over her shoulder, pulling out a white, paper-wrapped parcel. “Miss Barnes asked me to give this to you.”

She sets it on the edge of the bed, offering him a small smile.

“Ring if you need anything, Castiel. I hope you feel better.”

“Thank you,” he manages. She nods and leaves, quietly closing the door behind her.

He feels exhausted, and he ends up bringing his plate back to the bed and only eating half of what’s on it. When he’s done, he reaches for the parcel, a little perplexed. He’s not sure what could be in it, given that he didn’t make any decisions and she hasn’t had enough time to make him anything.

To his surprise, he unwraps it and opens the box to find three pairs of soft, pretty drawers nestled in tissue paper. Wide-eyed and miseries briefly forgotten, he takes them out and lays them on the bed one by one, inspecting all the fine little details; the white, ribboned lace on a silky pale blue pair, the delicate pink rosebuds on a shorter, ruffled pink pair in the softest of cotton, and the intricate white flowers embroidered on a buttery yellow pair trimmed in scalloped eyelet lace.

Cas must spend half an hour turning them over in his hands, a ridiculous part of him wanting to cry. He didn’t know they made drawers like this, that they even _came_ in colors; if he did, he would have assumed only harlots wore them, but now that he sees them, he can think of nothing more pure. He strips out of his sleep pants and the greying, plain drawers he’s been wearing, and as soon as they touch the ground he knows, in his bones, he’s never going to wear them again.

He puts on the yellow pair, first; he doesn’t bother with the sleep pants, because this is his bedchamber and no one is going to see him and the yellow drawers are the softest thing he’s ever worn, and then he crawls back beneath his blanket, a strange calm settling over his soul.

Dean was wrong, Cas decides.

Undergarments are not ‘basic’ _at all._

“Wanna explain what that was?” Pamela asks when she comes to see him later, barging into his room like it's her own goddamn parlor.

“No,” Dean says shortly. She’d probably tell him he was being crazy. He _saw_ the way Cas played her, before Dean goaded him into losing his temper. Which, seriously — the guy could have been an alpha. He’s almost as bad as Dean.

Of course, he has a very particular grievance with Dean, so maybe it doesn’t count.

Anyway — Dean’s still pissed about the whole appointment. Cas started off ogling Pam, which kind of made Dean want to punch a bedpost — because Pam’s his friend, and Cas has no business complimenting her _figure_ when she’s there in a professional capacity, but apparently they don’t teach basic fucking manners in New Eden — and then played that sad, big-eyed fragile act, getting her to soothe and reassure him.

And when he got into it with Dean — well, Cas had manipulated her so well she sided with _him_ , and she apparently felt so protective that now she’s come to lecture Dean.

It’s not fair. Dean’s the only one who knows what Cas is really up to, here, and until he has better proof, everybody’s letting their sympathy for Cas’s supposed situation color their judgment.

“You could stand to be a little nicer,” she says, eyeing him carefully. “Whatever you may think he is, he’s at a disadvantage, here.”

Dean looks up sharply, at that.

“Whatever I may think he is,” he repeats, and tilts his head. “What do you mean by that?”

She shrugs, though he thinks he sees a flash of impatience.

“What do I ever mean by it?” she drawls. “What I meant _overall_ , though, is that you’re coming to tomorrow’s appointment and _apologizing_.”

“What? No! Come on, Pam, I don’t need to be there for that. It’s boring as hell and we’ll probably end up fighting again.”

“Not if you know what’s good for you,” she counters, and while Dean’s pretty sure he could take her in a fight, he A) doesn’t want to and B) suspects she has way worse plans for him than violence.

“Fine.”

“And make it sound sincere.”

“Uh, can’t make any promises.”

“You made him go nearly two weeks with a single pair of underwear,” she points out. “Don’t even try to tell me you’re not sorry about that.”

He’s definitely not, because Cas deliberately didn’t ask because he was putting on his vulnerable omega act, but _objectively speaking,_ Dean can see how it was probably uncomfortable for him, anyway.

“Yeah, alright. I’ll tell him I’m sorry and keep my mouth shut this time. Happy?”

“Oh, it’s not about me.” She studies him. “Don’t take it too far, Dean. You’ll regret it, later.”

He blinks.

“What?”

Her expression doesn’t change, vaguely distant.

“I mean it. I don’t expect either one of you to make it easy on yourselves; but if you’re too hard on him, you’ll be the one to suffer.”

He opens his mouth, then shuts it, swallowing.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She sighs.

“Of course not. Good night, Dean. Be there at one tomorrow.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Pamela just rolls her eyes and saunters out of the room the same way she came in.

Dean doesn’t sleep as well as he thinks he should, but that’s fine.

He’s come that much closer to showing Cas’s true face.

First thing after breakfast, the council asks to see him.

Dean’s not too worried, though he expects it probably has something to do with Cas. If they ask if he’s trying to make an heir or whatever, he’ll just lie. After all, it’s not like they’re going to check up on something like _that_ , are they?

Five minutes in, he’s definitely worried.

“You’ll need to order her dress — the finest thing Miss Barnes can produce. Of course, there’s only two weeks until you take The Drive, so she’ll have to postpone her other obligations, but we will compensate her handsomely. I cannot stress the importance of the girl’s appearance; her attire must be as extravagant as it can be while still being the fashion, else The Drive is nearly pointless.”

“Right,” Dean says, a little numb. It’s a lot to take in, first thing in the morning. To begin with, the council expects him to get Cas all dolled up so he can do a day-long tour of the city, showing everyone both what happens when you fuck with Winchester and the beauty of the mother of the next generation of Winchester heirs.

Which is pretty fucked up, if he thinks about the fact that the plan is to hide said mother away once they have those heirs, but Dean has more important things to worry about.

Like the fact that the council didn’t get the memo that Cas is not exactly a girl, or anything approximating one.

On the other hand — he _is_ beautiful. And they're still maintaining the pretense that Cas is going to bear those heirs, so — like Dean thought in New Eden, it doesn’t really change anything.

Still. By the time the councilman is done droning on about it, Dean’s decided that since it _doesn’t_ matter, there’s no point saying anything now.

Yeah, it’ll be way better to just _show_ them. Once they actually _see_ Cas, everything should be fine.

Well, until Cas tries to assassinate him, of course, but Dean suspects it’ll be a while before that happens. Cas still wants him to die in anguish, knowing his beloved betrayed him, which is sure as hell not gonna happen, but it might take some time for Cas to realize Dean’s a lost cause. Only then will he decide to cut his losses and shank him while they’re riding through the orchard or something, to flee on horseback immediately after.

Except not, because Dean’ll be expecting it, and he’ll be prepared.

Anyway, Dean just smiles and nods and promises to speak with Pamela first thing — not a lie, since he’s meeting her in a couple hours — and then he heads down to the training field like it’s any other day at the castle.

The weird feeling in his stomach is probably just breakfast sitting funny.

When the knock comes at a quarter to one, Cas eagerly opens the door, assuming it’s Pamela. He’s excited to thank her.

Unfortunately, the person on the other side is Dean, and Cas's stomach immediately drops, all his pleasure at the gift evaporating. A full minute passes before he realizes he’s just standing there, staring, and he shuffles back, looking away.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Hey, Castiel.” Dean coughs, though he doesn’t enter. “Mind if I come in?”

Cas squints.

_Does it matter_? he almost asks, but he’s not stupid enough to think it won’t start another fight.

“Please do,” he says quietly, gesturing Dean in, and Dean nods, shutting the door behind him. It’s somewhat alarming, being alone in his room with Dean when there’s clearly still anger between them, and Cas subtly scents the air, hoping for some kind of cue.

All is calm, Dean’s scent as pleasant as ever, no more and no less.

“Sorry, I know we said one, but . . . I, uh, I wanted to apologize.”

Cas stares.

“Apologize? For what?”

Dean makes a face, glancing away as he rubs his neck, fingers curling into a loose fist when his hand awkwardly falls back to his side.

“For being an ass to you,” he says, and Cas can’t stop his brows from lifting in surprise.

This is . . . not what he expected.

“And, uh. For the underwear,” Dean says, softening a little, though he still looks uncomfortable.

It takes Cas a moment to put the pieces together, and then his stomach turns over, though not unpleasantly.

“Oh.” He swallows. “Oh, I didn’t — oh.”

Dean tilts his head, questioning, and Cas tries and fails to fight a blush, though he makes himself meet Dean’s eyes.

“Thank you,” he says, sincere. It’s embarrassing, certainly, to think of Dean having _drawers_ sent to him, but he appreciates the intent behind the gift, nearly as much as the gift itself.

Dean’s eyes widen a little, tongue darting out to wet his lips.

“Uh. Yeah, sure. I mean, I — I owed you an apology, so . . . you don’t really have to thank me.”

Cas shakes his head.

“I do.” Dean can’t possibly know how much they meant to Cas, nor is Cas comfortable trying to tell him. There are lines, after all. “And — I owe you an apology as well. I’ve been difficult. You’ve been very good to me, Dean. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.”

Dean’s brow creases. He looks as unsettled by Cas’s response as Cas was surprised by his apology.

“Right. I — well, I’ve been trying. But, you know, if there’s anything else you want, let someone know.”

Cas nods. Honestly, he’d like the garden to happen sooner rather than later, and he’d also be satisfied by another half dozen pairs of drawers as nice as the ones he’s wearing, but that’s unreasonable.

Especially to ask about right _now._

“I will. Thank you, Dean. I’m sorry I don’t always — _act,_ with gratitude, but I am. Grateful.”

And he is. Maybe he’s afraid, too, upset with how things turned out, and resentful of the way that _Dean_ seems to be the one who has the most difficulty moving past their conflict — but at the end of the day, things could be far worse, and Cas is thankful they aren’t.

For whatever reason, Dean frowns.

He opens his mouth, but whatever he was about to say is lost to another knock on the door.

Cas waits, just in case, but Dean shrugs and wanders over to the window, so he calls for the new arrival to enter.

Pamela’s wearing black today, though she doesn’t look the least bit like she’s in morning. She doesn’t look surprised to see Dean by the window, either; she looks at him for a moment, and then turns to Cas with a smile.

“I’m not leaving without an order today,” she warns him, eyes twinkling.

Cas smiles back.

“Alright.”

Dean is so quiet at his perch by the window, one might be forgiven for forgetting he was there at all.

Cas doesn’t quite manage it, though today it feels comfortable, Dean’s presence in the background. Pamela guides him through selecting five pairs of trousers, three coats, half a dozen waistcoats, and ten different shirts.

“Now,” she says, once that business is concluded, “Underthings.”

She pulls out an entire separate book, and though Cas is excited, to put it mildly, he’s also a little wary.

He’s learned, over the last two hours, that while nice things and the prospect of having them appeal to him, and _reaching_ a decision is immensely satisfying, the process of _making_ it is not. The choices in Pamela’s books are overwhelming. It’s not that he doesn’t like anything; he likes a wide variety of things, though he has no instinct for what will suit him or, with a few exceptions, what he’ll prefer over something else.

When she opens the book of underthings, Cas immediately realizes the problem will be even worse, here. It’s full of things he didn’t even know to covet before now, and the idea of making any kind of choice among it all leaves him feeling somewhat lost.

“Dean,” he blurts out, turning. “I — will you help?”

Dean blinks back at him, apparently startled to have been addressed. If Cas is not mistaken, he’s been drawing shapes on the glass pane of the window.

“Huh? Help with what, now?”

Cas hesitates.

“The underthings,” he eventually says, and Dean’s expression does something very peculiar, flitting between shock and embarrassment and something that looks almost like suspicion. “You don’t have to,” Cas adds quickly. “But — I thought — you have very nice taste in drawers.”

There's stunned silence for a moment, and then Dean goes red.

“ _Who told you_ ?” he hisses, and it’s Cas’s turn to blink, confused. “That was — it was _one time_! It wasn’t even my idea!”

There’s a sharp snort from beside Cas, and Dean’s head whips toward the sound, gaze turning furious.

“Dude, _seriously_? I apologized, just like you told me to! I can’t believe you told him about that!”

At that, Cas stares, stomach sinking. He’s not completely sure what’s going on, but he caught at least some of it, and it would seem Dean’s apology was not as genuine as Cas thought.

His good mood blinks out like a dampened candle.

He feels — impossibly foolish.

“Dean,” Pamela sighs, after a moment of quiet. “I didn’t tell him anything.”

“Then how the hell does he know?”

“I imagine he doesn’t,” she says, pointed, and Cas finally looks away from Dean, back at the book.

“I probably don’t. I — Pamela sent me three sets of drawers last night. I assumed you had chosen them.”

For a long moment, silence reigns.

And then:

“Wait — is _that_ what you were thanking me for? Earlier?”

Cas grits his teeth.

“Yes. Should I not have?”

“Well, _no_ , because I didn’t — I had nothing to do with that!”

Ah.

Well. At least Dean apologized with words. Although Cas feels like enough of an idiot, it’s little consolation.

“Then I’m sorry for misunderstanding,” he says stiffly. Dean remains quiet. “My thanks to you earlier were inadequate, Pamela. I appreciated that gesture.” He swallows. “More than I can say.”

Pamela looks considerably frustrated at this point, though now her eyes soften.

“I hoped you would, sunshine.” She hesitates. “Now that you know it’s _me_ who has that excellent taste, why don’t I help you choose?”

“Please do.”

He was embarrassed, when he thought Dean sent him drawers.

He has no idea why it feels quite so awful to find out he _didn’t._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: more mentions of Cas in feminine undergarments, Cas in a dress, public humiliation (more details in the notes), derogatory remarks (not sure how to tag for this, but some very ugly, problematic things are said, details in the notes), discussions of Cas (by the council) which treat him like an object/less than a person, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Cas in his dress for the Drive, by the incomparable [Diminuel](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/), can be found [here](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/post/622351150764670976/diminuel-i-was-browsing-for-references-and-came)!!! ❤

Pamela helps Cas pick out _seventeen pairs of drawers_ _—_ “That’s too many. How can I wear them all?” “One at a time is probably best.” “I meant—" “Oh, I know, angel, but trust me, it won’t feel like too many once you have them.” — before she shuts the book and declares her business finished. It’s easy to tune out the discussions of lace and frills because A) Dean is not curious about drawers, at all, even if that one time was kind of nice, B) he’s definitely not curious about _Cas_ in drawers, even if drawers are — objectively speaking — kind of sexy, and Cas is — objectively speaking — kind of sexy, too, and C) he’s busy furiously trying to make sense of Cas’s behavior and reactions, both to when he thought Dean sent him _underwear_ (!) and to when he learned he didn’t.

It’s tough, since this was information he didn’t have when he first made his apology — although that explains where all Cas’s teeth went; thinking Dean was gifting him intimates probably went a long way to soothing his frustration, and now that he knows Pam is responsible for both the knickers and the apology, he’s probably livid.

Except Cas doesn’t seem _pissed,_ so much as he seems . . . embarrassed. And disappointed, and kind of sad.

Which leaves Dean trying to figure out what’s a genuine response to another setback, and what’s a response calculated to make _Dean_ respond in turn.

He definitely _smells_ kind of bummed out, but again — he would be, wouldn’t he? He probably thought he’d have Dean eating out of the palm of his hand, by now.

Dean shakes his head, irritated. He shouldn’t have been so fucking nice, the first night. Should have sent Cas dinner in his room and crashed on Benny’s floor and said as little as possible to the guy. He was such an idiot, so goddamn _naive._ Cas being that gorgeous should have set off alarm bells from the first, especially with the sudden change in plans.

Well, lesson learned.

“Actually,” Dean finally remembers, turning to stop her from packing up. “He, uh, he needs something for The Drive.”

Cas looks at Pamela.

“The Drive?” he asks her, like Dean hadn’t spoken. What he thinks he’ll achieve by being a brat, Dean’s not sure, but he’s welcome to try.

Pamela regards Dean coolly.

“Dean will take you on a drive through the city. The people like to see the mother of the future heirs.” She leaves out the part about ‘and the symbol of Winchester’s might.’ “You’re supposed to be dressed in the finest there is.”

Dean can’t see enough of Cas’s face from here to make out his expression, though he’s silent for a few moments.

“There will be . . . people?” he finally says. Pamela nods.

“A lot of people. It might be a little overwhelming,” she says frankly.

Again, Cas is quiet. Dean swears his head twitches in some kind of aborted turn, but then he faces Pamela more fully.

“I would like a dress.”

She lifts her brows.

“A dress?” she repeats.

“If I’m going out in front of an entire city, dressed in ‘the finest there is’, it should be a dress. Anything else doesn’t — it doesn’t feel proper. It’d be — uncomfortable, I think.”

Pamela hesitates.

“Are you sure? Because you might end up more unco—"

“Let him have his dress,” Dean interrupts, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms. He knows what she was about to say; Lawrence is a modern city, but a lot of them will look twice at a man in a dress.

He’s curious to see how Cas will react to it; what Cas is hoping to achieve here. There wasn’t any push to get some dresses when Pamela was helping him pick out trousers and coats — although Cas insisted on long coats, despite Pamela’s feelings on the whole hips issue — and it’s a little suspicious that _now_ he suddenly wants a dress again.

Honestly, Dean doubts he actually wore them in New Eden. He’s not sure if the angle was feminizing him, to make him seem less threatening or even just in case Dean was one of the rare people who liked the opposite gender without exception, or if it was to emphasize some kind of fish-out-of-water thing so Dean would feel compelled to take him under his wing and teach him shit, but whatever it was, he doesn’t buy it, and he’s not sure why Cas is pushing for one here.

He’ll just have to wait and see.

“Dean,” Pamela says carefully, throwing him a significant look.

He raises a brow.

“Look, we’re making him go through _our_ dumb tradition. If wearing a dress for special occasions is his, why shouldn’t we let him have one?”

She purses her lips.

“How . . . _considerate_ of you,” she says, and it’s clear she means the opposite.

Whatever, though. Dean gets final say, and if Cas thinks a dress is going to somehow help his plans . . .

Well, Dean looks forward to seeing why.

Dean’s busy the next two days, and Cas spends much of the time thinking.

Obviously, Dean’s apology was not sincere. In hindsight, Cas feels incredibly stupid, not just for believing it would be, but for reciprocating in kind. His time at Winchester Castle must be getting to him. Anna wouldn’t have _apologized_ for being difficult, wouldn’t have expressed her gratitude, so pathetic as to be bought by three pairs of pretty drawers. Honestly, if Dean had said “I’m sorry” to her, she probably would have looked him dead in the eye and said, “Good.”

(Cas would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried about how long she would last here, for a variety of reasons. After all, Cas has behaved rather rashly himself, even though he’d thought he’d been well-trained out of such things. Something about being away from home, knowing you’ll never go back or see anyone you knew again — it makes you reckless.)

Anyway, this time around, Cas has no illusions that the fight will be resolved. Dean’s now made it very clear what he thinks of Cas, and of any kind of willful expression he makes.

It would seem kindness is reserved for vulnerable omegas who mind their place. Cas would have said the second thing, at least, applied, but he’s done a poor job of showing it.

On the other hand — as strangely devastating as it is when Dean snaps at him or takes him to task or even just fails to be _nice,_ he still hasn’t _hurt_ Cas. Nor has he ordered anyone else to do it. Cas continues to receive all his meals, and Kate told him this morning that his riding lesson was postponed until the day after tomorrow, which means it will still be happening.

Cas keeps doing the wrong thing — but aside from Dean’s coldness, there has yet to be any fallout.

And a part of him _despises_ that coldness, is desperate for any kind of friendliness or affection here, but Dean seems to have made up his mind, and Cas doubts he can change it.

And he’s still _angry_. Distracted though he may have been by what he thought was an olive branch, embarrassingly taken in by a gift _—_ and how could he have thought the prince would be giving him a _gift_? — it doesn’t change anything else. It doesn’t change how wrong things have gone, that he’s now staring down a future that may be even worse than the one he’d anticipated.

It doesn’t change the fact that he’s more alone than he’s ever been, and when they send him to the Gardens, it will probably only be worse.

Which — fine. He’ll deal with it, as he’s always done. And if all he has to fear from Dean is grumpiness and snide remarks?

He might as well stop worrying.

On Friday, Dean comes to get him for another lesson.

He doesn’t look at Cas, just boredly inspects the room when he asks, “You ready to go?”

It irks Cas.

“I wouldn’t have opened the door if I wasn’t,” he mutters, and finally, gets a sharp look from Dean.

He doesn’t return it. After a beat of hesitation, he pushes past Dean, going out the door first.

There’s a little pulse of anxiety as he leaves, wondering if he’s being stupid, but mostly there’s a thrill of satisfaction, a petty, childish pleasure in asserting himself.

Dean’s polite, as he always is, although he says much less today. He regards Cas with calm, dispassionate eyes, brusquely correcting his form or warning him of potential obstacles and instructing him how to handle the lead.

Cas listens wordlessly, and the two hours seem to drag before Dean decides they should head back.

“Found you a space for your garden,” Dean announces casually, and Cas brightens for a second until Dean mutters, “If you actually want it.”

Cas slants a suspicious look at him.

“I do. I wouldn’t have asked for it if I didn’t.”

“Except technically you _didn’t_ ask; I offered.”

Cas clenches his jaw.

“Yes, well, I’ve already expressed my _gratitude_ for all your many kindnesses.”

He can feel Dean stare at him.

Then he snorts.

“Someone’s in a mood today.”

Cas’s head whips to the side, incredulous.

“Well, since _someone_ doesn’t want me to be a “shy, scared little omega,”” he bites out, “I’m not sure what someone expects. I’d certainly appreciate being told.”

“Oh, I’m sure you would,” Dean retorts, and Cas squints at him.

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Dean lifts his chin.

“Means I’m not as stupid as you think I am.” He gives Cas a smile that’s some horrible combination of nasty and smug. “And I sure hope you enjoy gardening.”

He nudges his horse into a fast canter, one Cas isn’t quite brave enough to try and keep pace with. Cas’s horse trots after him, Cas seething as they go.

Anyway, Dean is, in fact, _much_ more stupid than Cas thought, if he somehow imagines _gardening_ to be any kind of threat.

No wonder subjects like Pamela can tell him what to do.

Dean has a shrewd, expectant look on his face as he shows Cas the surprisingly large expanse of green lawn off the side of a terrace, which is presumably meant to be his garden.

“All yours, buddy. I look forward to seein’ what you do with it.”

Cas frowns at the space.

“There’s not a lot I can do with a patch of grass and nothing else.”

Dean blinks, and then huffs.

“Well — well, _obviously,_ whatever — seeds and stuff you want, just — ask.” He shoots Cas a significant look. “Since you’re _clearly_ in a position to be asking for things now.”

Cas wonders if bedding would be easier to put up with than this escalating, combative attitude of Dean’s.

“That’s nice to know,” he says evenly. “And who, exactly, should I ask?’

Dean studies him, searching, as he always seems to be.

“Make a list and give it to Kate,” he says eventually. His lip curls. “Of course, take as much time as you need to decide.”

“I’ve already had plenty of time. I know what I want.”

“Right, I forgot. You _like_ gardening.”

“Yes, I do,” Cas snaps. He has no idea what Dean is getting at, yet he gets the sense he’s picking at _something._

“Okay, then. Pass your little list on. Don’t forget tools,” he adds. “Can’t garden without tools.”

“Technically, you can, but yes, tools do make it easier.” Cas clears his throat, hating to ask. “If there are any — books available, on botany, I would appreciate it.”

Dean’s gaze sharpens.

“Oh, yeah? Not as familiar with gardening as you could be, huh?”

Cas is so — so _confused,_ and Dean is being a particular kind of _awful._

“No, I’m not. I’ve spent the last ten years tending fruit and vegetables because anything else was a waste of time. Unfortunately, all I seem to _have_ nowadays is time _,_ and I’d like to spend some of it growing _flowers._ ”

Dean shuts his mouth, at that, and then finally shakes his head, looking away.

“Alright. I’ll ask Charlie about some flower books. Mount up, we’re done here for tonight.

Cas met the woman once, but he’s so upset right now he experiences a stab of resentment that someone as undeserving as Dean has such easy access to her company. He stalks back to his horse without responding, swinging himself up with so much force he nearly goes right over, and behind him, he swears he hears Dean snort. Cas resists the impulse to turn around and glare at him.

He and Anna were wrong, indeed. It turns out the prince is not a monster, of any kind.

Instead, he’s just an _ass._

If Dean weren’t so fucking annoyed, he’d be delighted.

He knew it was all an act; he’s embarrassed he ever fell for it, but he likes to think anyone would have. Cas _was_ convincing — at least, back when he thought he was winning.

Now that he knows he’s not? His temper’s clearly getting the best of him. In fact, Dean would say he’s not even _trying_ anymore.

Gone is all the shyness and uncertainty, like it was never there (it wasn’t, clearly). Cas gives as good as he gets, and he’s not bothering to make a secret of his irritation.

He _is_ still trying to play the martyr, though, so maybe he hasn’t completely lost it, but Dean’s pretty sure if he keeps goading him, he’ll get there.

Honestly, Dean’s not sure how he wants it to go down; if he wants Cas to try and beat him over the head with a shovel in the privacy of the garden, so Dean can confront him, see his face as he realizes it was all for naught — or if he wants Cas to try it in plain view of an audience, to have the satisfaction of everyone seeing, firsthand, the truth about the poor sacrificial lamb from New Eden.

And how soon does he want it to happen? He’d thought it was best if Cas played his hand as quickly as possible, if it could be over and done with and then maybe the council would decide it wasn’t worth trying again.

Now, though — Cas was enough of a shrew today, when he knows he’s the one in the wrong, that Dean wonders if it’s really fair to just let Cas do his thing and then hold a trial. Cas doesn’t just want to kill Dean — something that would, maybe, be a little understandable — he wants to deceive him, _manipulate_ him, and traumatize him in his dying moments.

Maybe he deserves a taste of his own medicine, is all.

Dean mulls it over the next day, making sure Cas’s list gets to the right people and asking Charlie for botany books. Charlie looks pleased with him, and for some reason delivers the books to _Dean_ that night, telling him to send Cas her best.

If she only _knew._

Anyway, Dean very graciously sacrifices his personal time to pretend to teach Cas to ride and then sit and watch him (probably pretend to) garden, but on their second outing, Cas has the nerve to basically tell him he’s doing it _wrong._

“It would be easier if I could work on it every day,” he mutters, carefully digging up patches of grass to replace with topsoil. Dean debates pretending he didn’t hear him, but truth be told, he’s curious to see where Cas is going with this. So far, he’s managed to convincingly occupy himself; and yeah, watching Cas garden is pretty boring, since Dean has to sit there with pretty much nothing to do but watch the guy rummage around in the dirt, muscles in his back bunching beneath his shirt, strong hands maneuvering the trowel and occasionally turning to sketch things on a sheet of paper as drops of sweat slowly make their way down the curve of his cheek and jaw and — and anyway, the point is, if Cas is going to make shit up, Dean’s going to make him see it through.

Besides, if the council finds out Cas is out of his room without Dean present, he’ll kind of be screwed, so it’s not like he has a choice.

“Are you seriously asking me to sit here doing nothing twice as often?”

Cas hesitates, trowel hand stilling. Then he draws his shoulders up, glancing back at Dean.

“You’re the prince. If you don’t want to, just say _no._ ”

Cheeky bastard.

“I’ll think about it,” Dean drawls, just to be annoying, but he knows he’ll do it. He doesn’t have a lot going on in the evenings — Sam won’t even get home from school until a day or two before The Drive — and this game he’s playing with Cas is at least entertaining, as frustrating as it can be sometimes.

Besides, he _does_ want to see where Cas is going with this whole garden thing, and if they go out every evening, that should mean he finds out faster.

Unless — is he hoping if they go every night, Dean’ll get so tired of it he’ll revoke gardening ‘privileges’ and Cas won’t have to do it anymore?

Dean purses his lips. That’s gotta be it. And it’s a good try, sure, but Cas is nuts if he thinks Dean’s going to let him off that easy. Nope, Dean’s schedule just got a whole lot freer, and he fully intends to spend _hours_ in this goddamn garden.

He smirks to himself.

Even if Cas _didn’t_ want to kill him before, he will after this.

Dean’s being aggressively obnoxious, and Cas is still not used to it — at least in New Eden, he was mostly _ignored —_ but he’s back to being weirdly accommodating, at least.

He doesn’t give Cas a time limit when they go out, and Cas decides to push his luck, working through till the sun goes down and it gets too dark to see. Dean doesn’t say a word about it, though Cas can feel his eyes on him every time they’re out there, watching him work. It’s unsettling, and he doesn’t know how Dean can bear to sit there and do nothing but look at him for that long, but he’s hardly going to protest.

Anyway, Cas still feels a low-level agitation, and sometimes it’s hard not to dwell on the future, so far beyond his control, but he cherishes his time in the garden. As depressing as it is, the way Dean treats him — the way Dean _looks_ at him — he’s grudgingly grateful. He’s not sure _why_ Dean is willing to do it, when he’s clearly so indifferent to Cas, but Cas thinks he might start going insane without it, and he doesn’t delude himself Dean is obligated — so yes, he’s grateful.

Still, it’s not so distracting he isn’t keeping track of the time, and on the night of the two-week mark, he puts aside his tools a little early and turns to Dean.

“Are you —" he starts, not sure how to ask.

Dean raises a brow.

“Am I?”

Cas hesitates.

“Should I expect you?” he asks instead, and Dean cocks his head, unconcerned.

“Expect me to do what?”

“Visit me.” Cas clears his throat. “It’s . . . it’s been two weeks.”

Dean looks startled.

“Oh.” His brow knits, and he opens his mouth, then shuts it. Then he frowns. “No. No, not — not tonight.”

“Alright.” They’re on far worse terms than they were the morning Dean told him the plan, and Cas can’t help but ask. “But you’ll tell me. Before it’s time.”

Dean scrutinizes him for a moment, then shrugs.

“Yeah. I’ll let you know.”

“Alright,” Cas says again, and Dean nods.

“You ready to go?”

Cas considers starting to prepare another flower bed — there should be time — but instead he nods.

“Yes.”

Nothing’s happening tonight, but he feels strangely tired, anyway.

Three days later, Dean’s brother comes home, and Cas’s evening gardening session is canceled.

It’s disheartening, how restless and unsettled he feels, pacing in his chamber as the sun sets over the castle. It’s just one day, but it leaves a hollow feeling in his stomach, and it might as well have been a week, the way the pretty white walls of his chamber seem to close in on him.

When he’s done here and he goes to the Gardens — when there’s no longer a need for Dean to be the one to chaperone him everywhere — he hopes they’ll let him work on something there, too.

He’s beginning to worry he won’t survive, if they don’t.

Pamela brings him his dress in the morning, and he spends a good ten minutes admiring it. He suspects she would have rather dressed him in trousers so tight he couldn’t wear his drawers under them, and some kind of braided and buttoned jacket that showed his hips and emphasized his shoulders — though why he would want to do such a thing, he doesn’t know — but Cas is supposed to look his best, for the Drive. Once he’s been here long enough, gotten used to Winchester menswear, he might feel differently; but for now he can’t help himself. He’s not going to _feel_ like he looks his best in trousers, and he’s not quite brave enough to face the crowds, otherwise.

Anyway — the Winchester style of gown has fewer layers and reveals much more, of both skin and form, but it still makes the possible-Adler hand-me-down look like rags. The scoop neck frames his collarbone, sleeves only lightly puffed caps over his shoulders. His arms feels naked, the meat of his shoulders ungainly and obvious, but Pamela said balloon sleeves were well out of fashion and Cas’s shoulders were very nice, besides. He had his doubts, but the finished product is _beautiful._ He loves the sleeves, sky blue and piped with white to match the long, butter-soft kid gloves that come with it. There’s the softest, most intricate white lace gathered all along the neckline, and a perfect row of small satin buttons run down to the waist, where the gathered skirt begins a very dramatic cascade, cleverly hiding his unseemly thighs. The white rose embroidery starts just above the knee, sparse at first and growing thicker as it moves toward the hem, the center of every rose finished with a small, shiny white pearl. If Cas thinks too long about how much time, how much painstaking effort it must have taken, he might cry from sympathy.

Below the hem, the end of an extensive lace petticoat peeks out, ready to billow over the white kid slippers she brought with her. The lace goes all the way up to the waist, extravagant and unnecessary, and Cas loves it on sight.

There’s a long beige coat with wide lapels and large cloth buttons to the side of it, waist gathered and skirt flaring out to mid-calf, a concession to Cas’s concerns of modesty (and that he might just look ridiculous).

“ _Normally_ , you’d wear a hat for a drive that long,” she says, a little sour as she unboxes a pearl barrette, “But no, the people of Winchester want to see your face, even if it means the damn sun gets to ogle along, too.”

Cas is fine with that. He’s seen few hats in Winchester, and working by himself in New Eden trained him to get rid of his when the shade permitted. At any rate, he’s not as uncomfortable going bareheaded as he should be.

“It’s all . . .” He swallows. “It’s beautiful.”

She smiles.

“It sure is. Try it on for me?”

Cas eagerly drapes it over his screen and ducks behind it to shuck off his clothes. Redoing the lacing in the back is difficult, but not impossible to do by himself, and he’s grateful Pamela opted not to use buttons.

She’s waiting with his gloves when he reappears, and though the smile she gives him seems almost reluctant, it still widens as she looks him over.

“Well, alright, then, gorgeous. I still like a pair of tight trousers, but I guess you knew what you were talking about.”

Cas beams, heading for the mirror.

He takes in a breath when he sees himself. Vanity is a sin, and he likes to think he’s only rarely guilty of it; he’s not beautiful and he never will be.

But right now, in this dress — he thinks it’s as close as he’ll ever get, and it makes his eyes sting.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and Pamela sighs, sauntering forward to lay his slippers out in front of him.

“Don’t thank me. You deserve it. And you really do look a treat.” She reaches up, gently positioning the barrette in his hair. “I just hope it all goes well.”

He deflates a little, but not much. Even if The Drive is an ordeal, Cas has half a mind to start wearing the dress while he eats his dinner; it’s not like anyone will be around to think he’s being odd.

“I hope so. But if it doesn’t — it’s just one day. I’m sure I’ve had worse.”

She smiles a little, patting his cheek, though there’s still worry in her eyes.

“That’s the spirit.”

“So . . . what’s she like?”

Dean side-eyes Sam pretty hard for his tone here, which Dean can’t even begin to read, but definitely doesn’t like.

Sam just lifts his brows, looking mostly curious but a little — _hopeful,_ and Dean huffs.

“He.”

Sam blinks.

“He?” he echoes, then sucks in a breath. “Wait, you brought back a _man_?”

Dean bristles.

“He’s what they had, okay?” Of course, Dean knows better now, and he definitely should have thought of that at the time, but it was a stressful day and anyway, he was trying to be _nice._

Unlike the sneaky little assassin languishing in his chambers downstairs.

His brother frowns, setting down his tea mug.

“So — he’s an omega?”

Dean shoots him a withering look.

“I got the same talk you did, Sammy. I wouldn’t have brought him back with me if he wasn’t.”

“Wow.” Sam looks thoughtful. “That’s . . . unusual. I mean, they’re known for their omega women. It’s hard to believe they really didn’t have anyone else.”

Trust Sam to make the connection immediately.

“Yeah, well, they didn’t,” he lies.

Sam nods, brow knitting.

“I thought they did, though. Weren’t they exchanging letters with the council?”

Dean shrugs.

“Something happened to her.”

“Really?” Sam sounds doubtful, and though part of Dean’s a little embarrassed that it took him so much longer to realize there was something fishy going on here, another part of him is tentatively relieved that Sam seems to be following the same path. “That’s weird. The timing, I mean.”

“I thought so,” Dean says cautiously.

“And they really didn’t have _anyone_? I’ve seen the census, and while New Eden’s out of the way, it’s a decent sized town. Big enough that it should have had plenty more omegas.”

“Yeah, well, they didn’t.” Dean’s not budging on that, no matter how badly he wants someone else to realize Cas is planning to kill him.

“Huh.” Sam goes quiet for a minute. “Oh — I think — how old is he?”

“Cas?” Dean thinks about it, and realizes he never asked. “Uh. I don’t know.”

“You don’t _know_?” Sam asks, incredulous. “Dean, it’s been two weeks. Three if you count the trip here.”

“So? He’s not here for me to get to know, Sam. Remember?”

For whatever reason, Sam looks almost disappointed in him.

“So, what? You never _talk_?”

Dean thinks of long, silent hours in the garden, only occasionally disrupted by Dean making some comment and Cas sniping back.

“Not really, no.”

Sam’s mouth flattens, and Dean braces himself for a lecture.

Instead, his brother just sighs.

“Okay. How old do you _think_ he is?”

Dean considers it. The big blue eyes make Dean think of cute, small things, like kittens and birds, but Cas’s broad shoulders and five o’ clock shadow say different.

Really, though, it’s all in the way he moves. He has smooth, pretty skin, even if it started out a little more tanned than most omegas would put up with, and there are moments when he seems to forget Dean’s watching and his hands go still, and he looks impossibly _young —_ but at the end of the day, the way he walks, the way he holds himself, the way he stares back at Dean . . .

“At least twenty-two.” He pauses. “Could be as old as thirty. Dude’s got a lot of different things going on.”

Sam looks taken aback.

“Twenty-two?” he repeats. “And he wasn’t already mated?”

Dean stiffens a little, suddenly outraged at the thought that Cas could have a _mate_ waiting for him back in New Eden while he temporarily sacrificed himself for the greater cause of Dean’s agonizing death — but then he dismisses it.

“No bite.”

Sam’s face twitches before it smoothes, and he calmly reaches for his tea.

“So you’ve looked.”

Dean narrows his eyes.

“At his neck, yes.”

Sam nods, sipping.

“And nothing else," he clarifies, watching Dean closely, and against his will, Dean's brain halts, suddenly flooded with images of _other_ things he looked at, accident or not.

“Yep,” he says after a beat, firmly banishing all thoughts of Cas’s thighs from his mind.

He gets a hard look for his troubles.

“Right. So you have."

“What? What the hell, man?”

Sam shrugs.

“I’m just saying. Man or not, you brought him to some strange place against his will and you don’t even _talk_ to him, but you went straight into—"

“Sammy—"

“Dean, Mom would _hate_ this.”

“I’m not!” Dean snaps. “I’m not — I’m not looking, or touching, or anything like that. I take him riding and then I sit on the lawn while he gardens, okay?”

Sam fumbles his mug, shocked.

“Wait, you — but –” He takes a deep breath, putting it down again. “Dean, if that’s how it is — how are you _not_ talking to him?”

Dean crosses his arms and leans back, avoiding Sam’s gaze.

So much for figuring out Cas is a secret assassin.

“He’s not real talkative, okay? Likes to fondle his dirt and ignore me.”

Sam blinks.

“So . . . you want him to pay attention to you?”

“What? No!”

“Actually, we kind of got sidetracked. You never told me what he’s like.”

“Yes, I did. I said he’s a dude and he’s not talkative.”

“And he ignores you.” Sam’s lips twitch. “And apparently it hurts your feelings.”

“Listen, bitch, if anybody’s doing any ignoring, it’s _me._ ”

“Definitely hurts your feelings. Jerk.”

“It does _not._ I’m serious. I’m the one who doesn’t want him talking to me. He’s kind of an ass.”

“And you wouldn’t be, in his shoes?”

If Cas were _actually_ some innocent omega sold off to the capital? Sure. But if Dean were on a covert mission to infiltrate, seduce, and murder? He’d be doing a much better job, is all.

“Maybe I would, but I’m _not_ in his shoes, and it’s a pain, so no, we don’t talk, and yeah, that’s how I like it.”

He ignores the skeptical look that gets him.

“Right.” Sam drains his tea, clearing his throat. “Anyway — that’s why they didn’t have any. They mate young, pretty much as young as Winchester allows. I wonder why he didn’t.”

_Because they were saving him for me,_ Dean wants to say, but he can tell Sam’s too busy feeling sorry for Cas that A) he has to be here in the first place and B) that he has to put up with Dean, to make the obvious connection.

“Probably his personality,” Dean mutters, although if the extent of Cas’s flaws were his persistent grumpiness instead of attempted murder, Dean can see how plenty of — much less discerning — alphas and betas (and let’s face it, omegas) would be all over that.

“What does that mean?”

“That he has a bad personality?”

Sam frowns.

“He’s not — is he less attractive than you were expecting? Is _that_ what this is about?”

Dean outright laughs, at that.

His brother looks unimpressed.

“It isn’t funny, Dean. Honestly, I expected better from you.”

Dean shakes his head, still snickering.

“Oh, just wait till you see him, Sammy. You’ll understand.”

Ignoring Sam’s disgruntled look, he stands, offering a grin.

“Race you around the orchards?”

Sam hesitates. He still looks unhappy, but eventually he sighs, the corner of his mouth ticking up.

“Fine. But unless he turns out to have maggots in his teeth and randomly spits at you, you’re an ass. Just so you know.”

“Not news, Sammy,” Dean says dismissively, though he turns to the door with a grim smile.

Sam’ll see.

_Everyone’ll_ see.

It’s just a matter of time.

Cas doesn’t talk to Dean while he gardens, and Dean never talks to him, but tonight, he has the strangest urge to tell him about his dress.

He swallows it, but ten minutes later he opens his mouth to ask Dean if he’s ever read the book Cas finished earlier, and once again, he has to stop himself.

Missing his work in the garden must have taken more of a toll than he thought.

“Somethin’ you wanted to say?” Dean asks, about half an hour in, and Cas freezes.

“Uh. No.”

“You sure? You seem . . . fidgety.”

Cas hesitates.

“Pamela gave me my dress today. I was thinking about the Drive,” he lies, and Dean hums.

“It’s pretty simple, just . . . tedious. You’ll sit in a phaeton with me and I’ll drive us through the streets of Winchester and everyone’ll come out to have a look.”

Cas grimaces at the dirt.

“I see. It does sound tedious.” And a little terrifying, if the crowds are anything like what he saw riding in, but he’ll just have to bear with it.

They’re quiet a moment, though he can feel Dean’s eyes on him.

“How’d you like your dress?”

Cas pauses, not quite sure how to answer that.

“Very much,” he says honestly. “I’ve never had a dress like that.”

He thinks he hears a low chuckle from behind him.

“I’ll bet.”

Cas frowns, but Dean doesn’t elaborate.

Still, it feels rude not to say anything else, since Dean’s initiated conversation. The fact that the most Cas really talks to anyone is those scant minutes when Kate comes in with meals or to clean has nothing to do with it.

“How is your brother?”

There’s a long silence.

“He’s good.” Dean sounds strangely cautious. “Glad to be home.”

“And you? Are you . . . glad to see him?”

“Well, yeah, of course. He’s my brother.”

Cas shrugs.

“Not all siblings are close. And I’d heard—" he stops, suddenly wondering if that’s true, and if it’s not, if Dean will be insulted.

“You’ve heard what?”

“Just . . . that in Winchester, family is less important.”

Cas throws a discreet glance over his shoulder, and sure enough, Dean looks irritated.

“What? Dude, you’re the ones who just hand over your daughters without a fight. If family’s ‘less important’ anywhere, it’s in New Eden.”

Cas flushes.

“We don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” Dean counters, and Cas grips the trowel more tightly, suddenly concerned he might just hit Dean with it.

“Is there, Dean? What’s mine?”

“You could have run,” Dean points out, and Cas almost laughs.

“Someone else would have had to take my place.”

“Like you took somebody else’s.”

“Like I took somebody else’s,” he agrees.

“Must have pissed you off. If anything, you’d feel more like running. Why should somebody else get out of it and leave you to clean up the mess?”

“Fine, say I ran. Where would I go, Dean? There’s no place for me anywhere else, and I wouldn’t be welcome back home. So you’re right, I did have a choice. I could starve to death in the woods instead of going with you.” He pauses, and even though he knows it’s not true and Dean probably will as well — “Maybe I _should_ have.”

There’s silence, and Cas waits, not quite sure at this point what Dean will do. It’s not like Cas hasn’t snapped at him plenty, but he’s never said anything quite like that before.

Eventually, Dean chuckles.

“You _sure_ you like gardening? ‘Cause it seems like it makes you kinda bitchy, Cas.”

Cas doesn’t miss the return to the nickname. He’s not sure what to make of it, but Dean sounds genuinely amused, enough that Cas doubts it was meant to be any kind of threat.

He hesitates, then decides to go with his instinct.

“Maybe it’s the company.”

Dean’s surprised laughter is loud and pleasant in the cooling evening air.

Cas doesn’t know what to make of that, either.

On Saturday, Kate and two other maids come to help him prepare for The Drive. They put a variety of things on his face and skin and in his hair, and Cas feels somewhat like freshly polished silver when they’re done.

“Holy . . .” Kate starts slowly, trailing off as Cas pulls the dress out of the armoire. “That’s gorgeous. Are those _pearls_?”

He nods, holding it like a mother might hold her newborn child.

“But why is it a dress?” One of the other maids asks, sounding doubtful, and Kate elbows her.

“Because it’s a dress,” she grunts. “What else would it be?”

He senses some strange tension in the eye contact that follows, and though he suspects it has something to do with the dress, he decides to ignore it. Kate doesn’t seem to think there’s anything that amiss, at least.

Soon enough, Cas is dressed and ready to be collected, tan coat draped artfully over one gloved arm. Anna’s locket settles just above the lacy neckline, and though Cas is a little worried it’s too simple for the dress, he likes the idea of having some part of her with him on the Drive.

“You shouldn’t need a coat,” Kate says. “Today’s shaping up to be pretty warm.”

He nods his agreement; it’s still May, and many of the days have been cool. Spring showers can strike when one least expects it, though, and they tend to bring a cold snap.

“Hopefully. I like the coat,” he says honesty, “And I hope I get to wear it, at some point. But not today.”

She smiles, then abruptly reaches out to squeeze his shoulder. He blinks, touched by the unexpected gesture.

“You look gorgeous, Castiel. Knock ‘em dead.”

He gives her a hesitant smile.

“What?”

She laughs.

“Nevermind. Just — go do you.”

“Alright,” he agrees, bemused, just as the knock comes. She straightens.

“That’ll be Dean.” Cas is continually amazed by the fact that he’s now been here more than two weeks and he has yet to hear anyone refer to Dean by his title. Sometimes he wonders if he’s just a decoy prince, and the real one is going to fling aside Cas’s bedcurtains in the dead of the night one of these days and demand his virtue.

He has, perhaps, been reading too many novels.

Kate walks to the door and he follows her, heart rate ticking up in an odd, nervous sort of anticipation as he waits for her to open it.

Dean doesn’t care about Cas’s clothing. He’s been clear about that, on many occasions, and it’s a good thing, because it also means Cas can have the clothes he wants — like this dress.

Still. Cas finds it hard to believe a dress like this doesn’t draw at least _some_ notice.

He decides he’s not wrong, once the door is opened and Kate has stepped back, because Dean’s vaguely impatient look melts into surprise, and then his eyes flick downward, unmistakable in their path as they travel over the dress.

Cas is waiting with an expectant look when he glances back up. He’s not expecting a compliment, exactly, at least not for himself — but Pamela has crafted a masterpiece, in his opinion, and it deserves recognition.

“Huh,” is all Dean says, however, before he abruptly pivots. “Welp, let’s go.”

Cas tries not to be disappointed.

He shoots Kate a final smile and follows Dean down the hall.

It’s of no matter; Cas likes his dress, and he likes the way he looks in it, for once, and it all gives him a very good feeling about today.

Perhaps he’ll even enjoy the Drive.

In the end, Dean’s pretty sure Cas doesn’t end up getting whatever it is he was looking for, with the dress.

Maybe from Dean, a little bit, though Dean does his best to cover it up; the reality is, an attractive person’s an attractive person, and nice clothing is nice clothing, and without involving any personal feeling whatsoever, Dean can admit that Cas maybe, kind of, looks really fucking hot in his dress.

(The slippers must have a heel of some kind, because Cas’s eyes are just about on level with his own, and that’s weirdly hot, too. They seem . . . closer, somehow. But yeah. Anyway.)

Dean gets over it fast, though, which is the important thing, and as far as the rest of Lawrence goes . . .

Well, they seem a little less enchanted.

Mostly, they’re confused.

Unfortunately, some of them jeer.

All of them gawk, though — and not really in a friendly way.

By the end of the first hour, Cas is sitting ramrod straight, hands clasped in his lap, expression terrifyingly blank. If Dean didn’t know better, he’d say the stares and the things people shout at them aren’t even registering.

But then he’ll flinch, just barely, as another person questions his dress or taunts him about how it might relate to what he’s representing, what he’s _here_ for, and Dean kn o w s in his gut that yeah, Cas i s well aware of _all_ of it.

By the end of the second hour, even Dean is starting to feel somewhat small, like maybe he _should_ have let Pamela talk Cas out of the whole dress thing.

Like maybe he’s done something wrong.

Certainly, it’s not comfortable having an audience mock and yell at you, even if you’re not technically the object of ridicule. He’s still in the phaeton, and he’s still conscious of Cas’s discomfort by his side, which sucks, because when Kate opened the door earlier, Dean got such a strong waft of rain and happiness he’d have to say Cas must have been delighted by _something._

Now, even in the open air of a moving phaeton, misery bleeds into the air around him. His own discomfort probably isn’t helping, but he can’t quite control it, any more than he can fully stifle his response to Cas’s. It’s all he can do not to just — take Cas’s hand, or even turn the phaeton around and head straight back to the castle, fucked up traditions be damned.

Anyway, it’s a long, long day, and by the time they’ve made it all the way back to the castle, they ride up the drive and through the gate in silence.

Until they reach the courtyard, that is.

“Pamela was going to tell me,” Cas says abruptly, still staring straight ahead. Dean swallows.

“Gonna tell you what?” he asks, even though he knows.

After a moment, Cas huffs a bitter laugh.

“You know. You _knew._ You stopped her on purpose.” Finally, he looks down, shaking his head. “You’re not nice to me. But you have been generous. I assumed you were at least _indifferent,_ but—"

He takes a deep breath, then looks right at Dean, blue eyes cold in a way Dean is startled to realize he’s never seen before.

“I hope you enjoyed yourself.”

And then Cas is clambering out of the phaeton all on his own, skirts dragging against one of the wheels on his way down. It leaves a long, ugly streak of dirt, but Cas just shakes them out and starts walking up to the castle.

Dean sits there for a long time afterward, trying to reason away his guilt.

He pretends he succeeds.

All evening, Cas tries and fails to focus on his novel. He doesn’t even taste his dinner, head spinning with the echoes of a disbelieving, jeering crowd.

_Just because you put him in a skirt doesn’t mean you can knock him up!_

_Isn’t the prince a little old to be dressing up his toys?_

_Letting a handsome one like the prince take me to bed is one thing, but I’d jump out my window before I let them put me in a dress!_

_Look at the poor thing, he must be humiliated!_

_I guess it’s clear what you’re here for, honey!_

_Mama, why is that man wearing a dress?_

He feels angry and jittery and yes, _extremely_ humiliated. The city crowds would have been bad enough on their own; Cas had, in some ways, insisted on the dress as a sort of armor, and he’d naively thought all that good feeling over it, over how he looked in it, would be a comfort when faced with the intimidating bustle of the street.

He was stupid, as he always is.

And he’s not just embarrassed because he was put on display for hundreds of people to shout such things at him; he’s embarrassed because Dean deliberately let it happen. Dean wanted him to suffer in this way, and while he knows Dean doesn’t _like_ him, he didn’t think he was — that he would ever intentionally _harm_ him.

But he did, and Cas feels — betrayed. He thought he’d come to understand Dean. He’d thought there were some things, at least, that he could trust.

He doesn’t, and he can’t, and he never should have been thinking that way in the first place.

Every time he starts to immerse himself in the story, he abruptly thinks of one more thing someone said, of one more disdainful face in the crowd as the phaeton drove past. He gives up and tries to go to bed early, but sleep won’t come. He’s just — _so_ upset, more upset than he thinks he’s ever been, even lying on a cellar floor in a pool of his own blood because no one but Anna would believe him when he told the truth.

For the first time since he’s gotten here, he wishes he could just go to the Gardens already. Perhaps things would be better; perhaps he’s been wrong to dread that isolation. After all, the one good thing about keeping to himself the last few weeks had been starting to forget how it had felt, to be what he was in New Eden.

Perhaps it’s truly better to be kept away from all the people who can remind him.

And perhaps it’s best to be kept away from _Dean._ From his coldness and his contempt, from the way he makes Cas feel lonely, though they spend so many hours together — from the way Cas has begun feeling _deprived,_ and like Dean is the one who’s withholding.

In fact, perhaps it would be better if Dean didn’t spend time with him at all.

Cas sleeps fitfully, dreaming that he’s back on the phaeton, driving an endless road lined with laughing crowds, or getting lost in a maze of gardens that seem to have no entrance and no exit, nothing but more greenery on the horizon.

Sometimes Dean is there, be it on the phaeton or in the gardens, and he’s laughing at Cas, too.

The first thing Cas does when Kate brings his breakfast in the morning, eyes tight with sympathy, is ask that his riding lesson be canceled.

As it turns out, the council has a lot more feelings about Cas’s gender than Dean did.

Dean alternates between getting yelled at and listening while they all shout at each other, and by the time he leaves the council room, the sun is down and he’s missed dinner.

Not to mention he feels even worse than he did after The Drive.

His Dad is definitely pissed at him, now — “I sent you there for one thing, Dean. You wanna explain the fact that you didn’t come back with it?” “I told you, something happened to her—" “Then they should have had a real substitute. New Eden was trying to make a joke of us and you just rolled over and let them.” — and while he’s a little less afraid of the council, they’re not exactly happy with him, either.

Anyway, at least everyone had mostly calmed down by the end. Their first reaction had been to propose sending a _demonstration_ to New Eden, to let them know those kinds of shenanigans wouldn’t be tolerated, and once Dean actually managed to get a word in, he had to talk fast, spinning some bullshit about how Cas had a dress on when they got there because in New Eden, omegas are all the same and they didn’t differentiate Cas, man or not.

“Even if it wasn’t meant as an insult — we have to send him back. And what were you thinking, letting him wear that? Half the city thinks we’re ridiculous and the other half thinks we’re dishonorable, humiliating him like that! And for what? The kind of prank you should have grown out of?”

Dean’s panic at the idea of sending Cas back was quickly shoved aside by an uncomfortable surge of regret, because the council had a point.

He _didn’t_ think it through, how that would look to everyone else.

All he wanted to do was figure out what game, exactly, Cas was playing here, and — if he’s being honest — he thought the city’s reaction would serve him right.

He just — he didn’t realize it would be quite that _bad._

Anyway, maybe Dean made a bad call, but the fact remains that while Cas is never going to bear the next generation of Winchester heirs, he’s already dragged Dean into his foolish mess of conspiracy and they _are_ playing a game, now.

And if Cas goes back to New Eden — Dean has no chance to win.

So Dean steeled himself and lied out his ass, painting Cas as a homesick damsel whose one request in all of this had been to have a dress like he was used to.

The council was still pissed that he caved at the first sign of omega tears, but apparently letting instinct drive him is better than being a dumbass just because he was bored, so Dean’ll take it.

Still, the vote just barely went in favor of keeping Cas. Dean thinks if anyone had managed to come up with a good reason for sending him back, he’d be in a carriage tomorrow morning, but the reality is that New Eden acted in good faith — according to Dean, anyway — and technically fulfilled their obligation. Cas _is_ an omega, and he should be as capable as any of doing what the New Eden omegas come here to do.

There’s no real, practical reason to send him home and ask for someone new; what’s more, it wouldn’t be just.

And while a lot of people have a problem with this whole tradition, the people who do approve do so on the grounds that they think it _is_ just, because _Winchester_ is always just.

Trying to trade Cas in won’t sit right with anyone.

In the end, they sent him off with an extremely disgruntled reminder to comport himself like a future king next time, demands that Cas be supplied with trousers — and only trousers, as should have been done in New Eden — and a warning that if it turns out Castiel _cannot_ do what he’s supposed to . . .

Well, that will be that.

Not that it’ll ever get that far, Dean thinks, trudging down to the kitchens. Cas’ll reveal himself long before then.

Which — after today?

Dean wouldn’t be surprised if Cas broke into his bedchamber to try and smother him with a pillow _tonight_.

The chair Dean only half-seriously slides in front of his door remains undisturbed, and when he finishes training the next day, Kate herself comes to let him know that Cas isn’t feeling up to a lesson tonight.

When she does, she gives him a look that suggests Cas isn’t the only person who might be thinking about killing him.

Which is just _unfair._ Kate’s a n omega herself , but Dean would say _she’s_ the one falling prey to omega tears or whatever the devious Cas-equivalent is. Even if Cas is still sulking over his failed seduction — even if yesterday was so much of a disaster Dean almost isn’t sure that his would-be murderer _deserved_ it — it doesn’t change the fact that Cas fully intends to _kill him._

And yet, until he proves it, everybody thinks _Dean_ is the one in the wrong, here.

Even Sam is sympathetic for all of five seconds before he realizes Dean knew about the dress, and then he gives Dean an Appalled look followed by a Disappointed look and Dean is still so uncomfortable from The Drive yesterday that he can’t even rally a good defense. Certainly, Sam’s less impressed by his excuse than the council was.

“He’s not even allowed to _see_ anyone else, Dean,” Sam says, puppy eyes in full force. “If you don’t look out for him — then who will?”

Cas’ll look out for himself just fine — with the exception of yesterday — but when Dean so much as tries to hint at that, Sam just looks _more_ disapproving, and it — it’s bullshit, is what it is.

And Cas canceling his lesson? That’s bullshit, too. No doubt it’s just an excuse to regroup and devise a new angle of attack, all the better to break Dean’s heart right before he runs it through.

Still. It’s not like Dean’s not curious to see what he comes up with.

He might as well just . . . give him a little space, if that’s what Cas wants.

Just to see.

Cas hides in his room — no doubt conspiring — for three days before he agrees to see Dean, and the only reason Dean puts up with it is because he wants to lull him into a false sense of security.

That’s it.

Cas doesn’t even greet him when he answers the door for their lesson, striding past Dean and (presumably) heading for the stables.

It’s . . . not exactly the strategy Dean was expecting.

Anyway, Dean told Sam they didn’t talk, because he thought that was the truth — but today, Cas literally says _nothing_ the whole time they ride, even when Dean unfairly criticizes his handling of a turn, just to test him, and by the time they’ve been in Cas’s garden for half an hour, Dean’s starting to get kind of . . . antsy.

“If it helps,” he finally says, wary, “My council was pissed at me. That I let you do that.”

Cas doesn’t even pause, still aggressively packing dirt into a little mound. It’s all starting to look like something other than a patch of lawn, now, and as boring as Dean finds it, he’s kind of looking forward to what it’ll be like when stuff starts growing.

“And that would help me how?”

Dean grimaces.

“Okay, maybe not _help_ you, but — you know. Maybe you’d feel better if you know I got chewed out.”

Cas is silent for a moment. Then:

“I generally don’t take pleasure in the discomfort of others,” he says, quiet and pointed. “So, no. It doesn’t.”

Dean’s not sure what to say to that.

“They wanted to send you back.”

It’s either the wrong thing or the right thing, because Cas flinches.

“I see. And will they?”

Dean studies him, the tense line of his shoulders, the way he carefully angles his head even more away from Dean.

“Do you want them to?”

Cas tenses even more for a second — and then his shoulders drop.

“I don’t know. I think I’ll probably be killed if you send me back. I don’t know if that’s better or worse, at this point.”

It’s insincere drama, and Dean knows that, but his stomach still turns unpleasantly at the sentiment.

“They can’t kill you for that. We wouldn’t let them get away with it.”

“You wouldn’t know.”

“How the hell would we not know?”

Cas glances back at him, a dark sort of humor in his face.

“We have our ways.”

An involuntary chill goes through Dean. What is Cas trying to say, here?

Does he seriously think he can kill Dean and _get away with it?_

The thought never crossed Dean’s mind, before, because it’s _ridiculous —_ but if, somehow, it isn’t as absurd as he thinks . . .

“What do you mean by that?”

Cas sighs.

“I mean that people die of illness and accident all the time. It’s not like your auditors perform an autopsy. They’d probably be told I caught flu.”

Dean relaxes a little. Of course; faking cause of death is easy if nobody gets to look at the body. That wouldn’t be the case, with Dean.

“There are some cliffs a few miles out of town, as well. I could have fallen.”

Dean swallows, and makes a note not to take Cas near any cliffsides.

“Well, now that you’ve told me, we’ll know about it.”

“But will you actually care?”

“Well, of course. That kind of shit is what started this whole mess in the first place.”

Cas lets out a dry laugh.

“I see. So if you find out they killed me, what will you do? Demand two of us next time? One for your brother, as well?”

Dean cringes at the thought. Maybe it’s because Sammy _isn’t_ the heir, but Dean thinks if he was, Dad would have a hell of a time getting him to cooperate with an arrangement like this. That’s just how Sam is, and you can assume he’s, say, too young to set an abused circus tiger free to cause chaos and panic in the streets, but he’s not.

Anyway, nobody died, and really, it’s the nurse’s fault for failing to clarify that when she reassured him the tiger wouldn’t hurt anyone, she meant _while it was in the cage._

“No, but — we’d do something.”

“Something which, still, would be not at all useful to me.” Cas wipes his brow, shuffling on his knees to another plot. “Because it’s not about me, Dean. It was never about any of us. It’s about Winchester’s pride and making a point.”

“So? That’s not a bad thing. Winchester’s got good reasons to be proud, and ‘not murdering people over minor offenses’ is a point that kind of needed to be made.”

“Minor offenses,” Cas repeats, musing. “You know, if not for fear of Winchester, I wouldn’t be alive today.”

Dean frowns.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they’d have killed me, as our law would normally demand,” he explains casually, and Dean stares, reminding himself to proceed with caution. Cas has had days to work on this fairytale.

“Really. And why would they do that?”

Cas snorts.

“Why do you _think_ , Dean? Or are you going to pretend you don’t know?”

“Dude, I really don’t. I have _no_ idea what you’re getting at, here.”

“And I have no reason to believe you. You’re apparently much more complicated than I gave you credit for. I’m not sure what you have to gain by playing obtuse, in this instance, but I don’t look forward to finding out.”

Dean rubs his forehead, suddenly tired.

“Look. You’re the one who wanted the dress.”

“And you’re the one who knew what it would cost,” Cas snaps, throwing his tiny rake on the ground and turning. Fierce blue eyes meet Dean’s, unmistakably angry. “You didn’t even have to warn me, Dean. All you had to do was let Pamela tell me, and that — _none_ of that would have happened. You wanted me to suffer, and I don’t — I don’t understand _why._ ”

Dean hates how small he feels, all of a sudden.

“I didn’t want you to _suffer,_ ” he protests, and he _didn’t,_ he thought Cas would be too mission-focused to care about it. And besides — “I didn’t think — I didn’t think it would be that bad.”

“But you admit you knew it would be like that.”

“No, I — look, I told you before. Men here don’t wear dresses. There’s a reason the guard kept staring at you that first day. I figured you just didn’t care, and Pamela telling you again would be pointless. I didn’t know they’d — _say_ stuff.”

It’s all technically true, even if Dean’s omitting a few things, but it’s not like Cas is confessing his intent to murder, either.

Cas looks at him for a moment longer, expression unreadable, then sighs, shoulders dropping.

“I shouldn’t care,” he mumbles, and Dean’s never seen him look so tired.

“Uh. Well. I think anyone—"

“What did they decide?” Cas interrupts, weary, and Dean stops. “Your council. Are they sending me back or not?”

“Oh. No. There’s not a good enough reason to, at least not now.”

“At least not now.” Cas looks frustrated. “What does that mean?”

“It — uh. You know, if — if things don’t go to plan, then . . .”

Cas narrows his eyes, and Dean coughs.

“The heirs. If you can’t — yeah. Then we’d have to figure something else out.”

Cas nods.

“The few male omegas in our history were killed on presentation, of course. It’s entirely possible I cannot give you children.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, and Dean decides it can wait for when Cas isn’t staring at the ground with bitter eyes.

“Oh. Well, male omegas are pretty rare here, too, but as far as I know, you’re not more likely to be — to not be able to . . .” He trails off, uncomfortable. “Anyway, I think mostly they were worried the, uh, the New Eden charm wouldn’t work with you.”

Cas squints.

“The New Eden charm.”

“First-born alpha sons. They’re worried I’ll end up having ten kids before it happens, you know?”

Cas goes white.

“Is that — is that usual?” he asks, sounding unsteady, and Dean quickly shakes his head.

“No! No, that’s — that’s rare, I mean, there’s a reason nobody has ten kids, but — but yeah, sometimes it can take a few tries.”

Cas visibly swallows, and Dean gets the feeling he’s no longer seeing anything he’s looking at.

“Oh. Alright. How — how many? Before you send me back?”

Dean blinks. They didn’t really say.

“I don’t . . . I don’t know.”

“But—" Cas starts, and then purses his lips, fingers curling into fists as he falls silent.

Dean’s not even the one bearing the children, and he’s suddenly uncomfortable, because the idea that Cas would have like, _four_ of his kids and then they’d make Dean try it again with someone else is just -

Abruptly, Dean shakes the thoughts away. He’s being ridiculous. Cas has no intention of having _any_ of his kids, and whatever response he’s playacting right now is just — just a bid for sympathy. It’s not real.

Dean _has_ to remember that none of this is real. His survival depends on it.

“You done? I think we should call it a day,” he adds, trying to sound as firm and unmoved as possible.

It must work.

Cas just nods, and doesn’t say a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Public humiliation: For The Drive, Cas, wary of the crowds, asks for a dress, thinking he’ll feel more comfortable that way. Dean prevents Pamela from warning him that people may find it odd or react negatively; they react even more negatively than anyone expects, shouting awful things at and ridiculing Cas over his dress and what he’s here for. Cas is humiliated and upset, of course, and is put in a very bad place, psychologically and emotionally.
> 
> Derogatory remarks: The jeering crowd as they take The Drive mocks Cas’s dress and alludes to Cas’s purpose here. He is referred to as one of Dean’s toys, and his ability to even become pregnant is remarked on. It’s dehumanizing and deeply upsetting.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: implied signs of depression (due to Cas’s situation), invasion of privacy (details in the end notes), talk of dub/non-con (details in the end notes), references to gender roles, mild references to poison, stereotypical old-timey notions of witchcraft, please let me know if I missed anything.

Over the next week, Cas cancels two more lessons.

The second time, unnerved by the silence, Dean goes anyway, asking if he wants to at least check on his garden. Cas answers the door with a tired, almost vacant look, and tells him he’s not feeling well.

That rainy scent of his is a little faint and considerably more stale than usual, sweet aspect lost beneath a slight mustiness; if Dean didn’t know any better, he’d say it had been longer than usual since his last bath.

“Oh. Should I send a doctor?”

Cas blinks at him, and then slowly shakes his head.

“No. There’s nothing they can do.” Dean frowns, and Cas sighs. “I’m tired. That’s all.”

“Tired,” Dean repeats. “You barely leave your room, how can you be _tired_?”

Cas just looks at him.

And then he gently shuts the door in his face.

Dean stands there, listening to the fading sounds of his footsteps, and finally heads back to his chamber.

He’s a little frustrated with himself, to be honest. This whole thing with Cas has taken up so much of his time lately, he’s hard-pressed to remember what he used to do with his evenings; and even though it should be a relief not to have to sit outside getting grass-stains on the seat of his trousers nearly every night, he finds himself . . . bored.

And maybe a little worried. Obviously, Cas is just struggling to regroup, since his original plan didn’t work out, but for all Dean knows, he could decide to cut his losses and run away.

Not only would Dean never be able to prove his true intentions, but he’d also probably get _blamed._

It’s just — concerning. Maybe Dean should have played along a little, after all. As amusing as it was to thwart all Cas’s efforts, to draw him out of his little act, he’s kind of created a stalemate, here. Where _is_ Cas supposed to go from here, with Dean so on guard? He really might decide to just try and kill Dean outright, and while that’s not a _bad_ thing, it somehow seems less . . . satisfying.

“How’s the garden coming along?” Charlie asks, when he goes to hang out in her room after dinner, and Dean shrugs.

“Mostly dirt, still. Shit takes time to grow, and he had to get rid of all the grass.”

She nods.

“Does he still have enough books?”

“Uh, yeah? You sent him like, a hundred.”

She rolls her eyes.

“I meant on flowers.”

“Oh. I guess? He hasn’t asked for anything else.”

“Okay.” She sighs. “Just — the rules are so stupid. I can’t imagine being cooped up in my bedroom like that, no matter how many books I had. I mean, sure, sometimes it _sounds_ nice, but . . .”

“I take him out,” Dean protests. “Like, almost every night. At this point I swear I spend as many hours in his garden as I do training.”

“So? Sam said you don’t even _talk_ to him, so he might as well be by himself.”

Dean takes _serious_ exception to that, especially since it means people _gossip_ about him.

Sam’s silent reproach even when they’re not actually talking about Cas has been bad enough.

“That’s not true. Just because I’m not trying to — to get to _know_ him doesn’t mean I don’t ever talk to him.”

Trading passive-aggressive remarks _totally_ counts.

“And that’s another thing! Why _aren’t_ you trying to get to know him?” S he huffs. “You’re spending _that_ much time with him, and you might be doing this for years to come _._ Isn’t it awkward?”

“No? Not really,” he lies. And it isn’t awkward.

It’s not _comfortable,_ but awkward’s not the right word for it, either.

Her eyes narrow.

“You know, for someone who was so up in arms over going to get him in the first place, you’re kind of being a dick.”

“Yeah, well, I thought we were getting some scared, innocent girl. As it turns out, Cas? Is kind of a dick himself.”

“He seemed plenty nice to me,” she mutters, folding her arms. “You know what? You should take me to see his garden.”

“It doesn’t even look like anything,” Dean reminds her, immediately disliking the idea. He might be playing a game, but it’s a dangerous one, and he doesn’t like the idea of risking Charlie’s safety by exposing her to Cas. “And he’s not supposed to see anyone but me.”

“So? No one’ll know, unless you tell.”

“Still. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Okay. _Why_ don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

“It just isn’t, okay? It’s not like you can go all the time. I don’t want him — I don’t know, getting attached to you.”

Her brows lift.

“Dude. Are you _jealous_?”

“What? No? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Doesn’t it? He’s pretty dreamy, even for me.”

“Charlie.”

“And Benny told us you practically tripped over yourself when he came out of the house. It’d make total sense if you were jealous.”

Dean grits his teeth.

“ _Trust me,_ Charlie. I’m not jealous. I’m about as far from jealous as you can get.”

“Okay, say I believe you.”

“Thank you.”

“You get that that’s weird, right? That you’re not getting all . . .” she waves a hand. “Feelings-y?”

“Feelings-y,” he repeats, making a face. “What do you mean by it?”

“Um, he’s totally hot, _you’re_ kind of a sucker, and you already felt guilty when you went to get him. And now you won’t even talk to him? Like, we were all worried you’d end up falling in _love_ with him and you’d do something crazy and stupid when it came time for him to go away. Not . . . whatever _this_ is. I mean, Dean — you’re being pretty nasty, especially for you. What gives?”

Dean purses his lips, considering.

Benny’s a big ol’ teddy bear, and he tends to be cautious about passing judgments, besides. Sam — well, Sam’s blinded by his own sense of justice and empathy, and innocent-young-man-sacrificed-to-save-his-village is a narrative that’ll be hard for him to see past.

Charlie, though . . . Charlie’s one of the nicest people he’s ever met, but she’s nobody’s fool. Even if she thought Cas was a harmless cutie when she met him, if Dean _explains . . ._

“I think he’s planning on killing me.”

For a split second, Charlie nods, eyes knowing, and then she freezes.

“I’m sorry — _what_?”

“Cas. He’s gonna try and kill me. Except he wants to seduce me, first.”

She sucks in a breath; opens her mouth, then closes it, the wheels clearly spinning.

“You think —" she starts, then stops.

“That he’s trying to kill me,” Dean finishes slowly. “Because he is.”

After a moment, her lips fold in, pressed tight together. She nods.

“Mhm.” She nods again. “Okay. That explains why you — but — okay. Walk me through this?”

“Sure. First of all — dude’s beautiful. And you only saw him once; I swear he gets _more_ beautiful the more you look at him—"

Charlie makes a weird noise, and Dean narrows his eyes.

“—even though he also gets to be more of an asshole.”

“Right.”

“So, yeah. Total knockout. Benny wasn’t lying; I did a double-take when he came out of the house — forgot all about the dress when I saw those _eyes_.”

“Right,” she says again, nodding. “I get it. Super hot. Go on.”

“And just the other day, Sam was telling me they get mated as young as they can in New Eden. Cas is in his twenties, at least, possibly older. So we’re supposed to believe that a guy who looks like _that_ wasn’t mated, even though it should have happened years ago?”

“Maybe he was waiting for someone special?”

Dean frowns.

“No. No, he’s not — he’s not the type. Seems more like — I don’t know, the practical kind. And he’s a bold little fucker, with a temper — if it was important enough for him to wait, he would have run away before coming with me.”

“Well, maybe that’s it? New Eden’s supposed to be pretty backwards. Maybe ‘bold little fucker’ isn’t their kind of omega.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Please. Omegas who look like Cas are _everyone’s_ kind of omega. Even if they regretted it later, somebody would have mated him. Besides, if not for the whole would-be-assassin thing, he’s not — I mean, _yeah,_ he’s a dick, but — I don’t know, he’s kind of funny.”

Charlie abruptly turns her face into her sleeve, letting out a weird, whimpering little sneeze.

“You okay?” he asks, and she nods, still not looking at him.

“Mm.” She coughs again, finally glancing up, expression weirdly blank. “Yup, I’m good. You were saying?”

“Yeah. Yeah, so — he should have been mated, but he wasn’t. Should have had every alpha in the village pining after him, right?”

“Oh, I bet. Even a blind idiot would be pining after him!”

“Right?” Dean says enthusiastically. “And yet, suddenly the girl we apparently agreed on years ago has an accident or something and instead of sending me some dowryless wallflower, they give me the most eligible omega in the town.”

“That is a little weird,” she admits, some of the strange humor in her eyes fading. “But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? You’re twenty-five, it’d be even creepier if you brought back some eighteen-year-old kid.”

Dean grimaces.

“Well, yeah, but that’s not the point. The point is, that’s what _should_ have happened, and it didn’t.”

“And you think you know why,” she finishes, sounding wary.

“Yep. I told you we had a run-in with some highwaymen, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, what I didn’t tell you is that the woman driving the first carriage got shot, and the carriage overturned on her.”

“That’s awful. Is she—"

“Should be fine. Thing is — Cas lifted it off of her.”

Charlie blinks.

“Yikes. Was it — was it a _small_ carriage?”

“Nope. Family-sized, for travel. Massive, and solid wood.”

“Oh. Okay. So . . . strong fella.”

“Right? So this pretty omega, who _supposedly_ was used to wearing dresses and shit — can lift a fucking carriage by himself.”

She looks uneasy.

“Well, sometimes in serious situations, people can do pretty crazy things—"

“That wasn’t it, Charlie. You haven’t seen his arms — he’s slender, sure, but even just digging around in the dirt, you can _see_ the muscle on him, right through his shirt. And his legs! His _thighs,_ Charlie, they’re insane, I think he could probably _choke_ a man to death with them—"

Charlie muffles another weird sneeze into her sleeve again, and Dean pauses, frowning.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You comin’ down with something?”

She shakes her head fervently.

“Nope, I’m good. Proceed.”

“Right, so anyway, we pick him up and he comes in playing this delicate little flower, afraid of the big bad alpha who’s gonna steal his virtue — and then he’s charging into battle and lifting carriages and yelling at me, _to my face,_ when not ten hours before he was all worried about what I was gonna do to him. And then he tried to go back to being a sad little martyr, but — like I said, he’s got a temper, and as soon as I called him on the two-faced act? He hasn’t shrunk back since.”

“Okay.” She considers this. “And . . . you think you upset him so much he wants to kill you?”

Dean stares.

“What? No! I didn’t — _I_ didn’t do anything, I’m saying this was their plan all along! They _saved_ him for me! As soon as he presented and they realized they had a badass soldier in a crazy- hot , sweet-smelling omega’s body, they started training him to get revenge. And all that stuff at the beginning was part of a ploy to _seduce_ me, so I’d fall in love with him and I’d die brokenhearted, knowing he betrayed me!”

Charlie just kind of looks at him for a long moment, and then she lifts a hand, rubbing her forehead.

“Right. Wow, that is . . . a lot to take in.”

“Right?”

“Yep.” She clears her throat, lifting her gaze. “Okay. Dean? I can see that you’ve put a lot of thought into this—"

“You’re damn right I have. I’m not an idiot, and I’m sure as hell not dying like _that._ ”

“—and I agree, there are some confusing things about the situation.”

He waits, feeling smug.

“But — seriously? I don’t think Cas is trying to kill you. Or even seduce you. I think he’s just a guy who got dealt a shitty hand, and now he’s struggling to cope. I think he probably _was_ scared, but I also think he has a personality, and honestly? People get tired of being scared. Besides, once he met you, he probably realized he didn’t have anything to be afraid of.”

Dean scowls.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Charlie just scowls back.

“Seriously, dude? It’s a _compliment._ It means you’re not a dick.” She blows out a puff of air. “Most of the time, anyway.”

He tenses.

“You don’t believe me.”

“I believe _you_ believe you, but — come on, Dean, it’s all circumstantial, and frankly? _Really_ unlikely.”

“How is a town we’ve been stealing daughters from for centuries wanting to get their revenge _unlikely_? Sending in a secret agent is basically their only chance to do it!”

She huffs.

“ _Yes,_ but—"

“But what? Fine, maybe I don’t _know_ he’s trying to kill me, but — it’s more likely than not! Stop thinking about big blue eyes and use your brain, Charlie!”

“ _You_ stop thinking about big blue eyes,” she mutters, and Dean frowns. That doesn’t even make _sense._ “Look, I’ll keep it in mind, but — even if you’re on your guard as far as attacks go, don’t be such an ass to him, alright?”

“I’m not being an ass,” he protests, although he’s not sure either of them believes that. “I’m just not giving him opportunities.”

“Okay. Well, maybe you _should_. Maybe you should see what happens if you do.”

He looks at her, surprised.

“What do you mean?”

“Try being . . . open. See what he does. See if he’s just polite, or if he — I don’t know, tries to crawl in your lap and get you to tell him he’s pretty.”

Dean shifts, suddenly very uncomfortable.

“Uh. I don’t, uh, think he’d — y’know, do that.”

She squints.

“I was exaggerating. I just meant — see if he suddenly changes personality again, if he thinks you’re open to something. Then you’ll know. If he keeps acting normally — maybe consider that he’s _not_ trying to kill you?”

He nods slowly.

“Okay. Okay, yeah, maybe it’s time to try drawing him out.”

She blinks.

“Wait — no, that’s not what I—"

“I’ve kinda been thinking that myself, actually, that we’re not gonna get anywhere like this, and he’s more likely to get fed up and try and kill me quick or even just run away. That would suck.”

Charlie closes her eyes.

“Dean—"

“So yeah, I’ll just — you know, lull him into a false sense of security, make him think the time is right to try laying on the charm.” Another thought occurs to him. “Shit — should I let him think it’s _working?_ ”

“Let him think _what’s_ working?” she grits out. He gives her a distracted frown.

“Seducing me. Maybe I should let him think I’m falling for it.”

“Dean, _no._ I swear to God, if you make him think you—"

“I’m not gonna do anything _crazy,_ just enough to encourage him to keep at it, and then when he thinks I’m right where he wants me . . .”

“I changed my mind,” she interjects. “Keep ignoring him. That’s definitely the way to go.”

Dean smirks.

“I could do both. Keep him on his toes.”

“For God’s sake,” she mutters, but Dean stands, pleased with himself.

“Thanks, Charlie. This has been bugging me.”

“Yeah, well, now it’s going to be bugging _me._ ”

“What? Dude, don’t worry about it. I’ve got this. And I won’t let him kill me, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

“It’s really not,” she says pleasantly, and he shrugs.

“Alright, I’ll see you later. And don’t tell Sam what we talked about, okay?”

“Sure. Of course not.”

“You’re the best, Chuckles.” He pats her head — she hisses and bats at his hand — and then heads for the door. “First things first, though, I gotta get Cas out of his room . . .”

“I thought I asked Kate to tell you—"

“You’re tired, yeah, I know. But you haven’t left your room in days, and it’s not healthy.”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“And I suppose you do want me healthy.”

Dean frowns.

“Well, yeah. Be awkward if you get rickets or something when there’s some perfectly good sunshine right outside.”

Cas shakes his head.

“I suppose I should check on my garden,” he says, sounding resigned.

“Well, that too, but — I was thinking we should go look at some trees.”

“Trees,” Cas repeats, squinting suspiciously. “Why?”

“For your garden. You ordered some flowers and shrubs and stuff, but I didn’t see any trees on the list. Might be nice to have some shade.”

“I don’t imagine I’ll still be here to see that happen,” Cas says bluntly, but Dean doesn’t take the bait. Cas’ll probably be in a dungeon, by the time any trees he plants reach maturity.

The idea’s surprisingly unpleasant. Maybe Dean should have him sent to the Gardens instead, when Cas finally tries to kill him, as a sort of poetic justice.

“Well, instead of planting seeds, I figured we’d just move some young trees.”

Cas’s brow dips.

“Why?”

“Why not? It’s a garden, it should have trees.”

Cas is silent for what feels like an entire minute, before he steps back, leaving the door open.

“Alright. I’ll get dressed.”

After Dean waits awkwardly at the table, carefully not looking at a completely opaque changing screen that holds zero interest for him, Cas reemerges looking mostly human, though there’s still something tired about the lines of his face.

As always, his hair is a mess, but it looks clean today, so Dean decides he probably came at a good time.

He stands, gesturing to the door with a slight smile.

“Shall we?”

Cas nods, and after a moment of awkward silence, Dean decides he’s supposed to lead the way today and heads out.

Cas doesn’t say much on the carriage ride to the nursery — Dean notices how careful he is not to look out the window as they drive through the streets — but Dean tries to fill the silence.

“Charlie says ‘hi,’” he tells him. “Wanted to know if you have enough books.”

He thinks he sees the corner of Cas’s mouth quirk.

“I’ve read more novels in the last month than I have in my life, and I think I’ve only made it through half a shelf. But tell her I say, ‘hello,’ as well.”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“She meant on botany.”

“Oh. Yes, I have enough. To be honest, they’re somewhat boring,” he admits. “Much of what I’m doing is trial and error.”

Dean snorts.

“What, really? You look so serious over there, I figured you had it down to a science.”

“Well.” Cas clears his throat. “I assume it’s not _that_ different from vegetables. The books are just for, um, specific flower needs.”

“Specific flower needs?”

“How much sun. Growth periods. Things like that.”

“Huh. Sounds complicated.”

“Well, I have time.”

Dean chooses to ignore that.

“What kind of trees, do you think?”

“I don’t know what kind of trees they’ll have.”

“Oh. Uh,” Dean scratches his head. “I don’t either. What do you _hope_ they have?”

Cas mulls this over.

“Apple. My — I always liked apples.”

“We can get you apples at the castle,” Dean volunteers, and swears Cas looks amused.

“I know. I have one with my coffee most afternoons.”

“Oh. Well, that’s — that’s good. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, and all that.”

Cas gives him a confused look.

“What? Why?” He narrows his eyes. “It makes it sound like — garlic and vampires.”

Dean snorts.

“No, apples are supposed to be good for you. Eat ‘em and you don’t need a doctor. You sayin’ you believe in vampires?”

Cas hesitates.

“The church says there are unnatural evils in the world,” he says eventually. “But no. All the evil we could want is within humanity, I think.”

It seems odd, coming from a guy who’s planning a cold-blooded murder.

“Uh. You’re not wrong.”

Cas nods, looking satisfied.

“No. I’m not.”

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Well. Most people in Winchester don’t believe in that kind of thing, either.” He clears his throat. “What, uh, what did the vampire say to the werewolf?”

Cas turns more fully, tilting his head.

“But I thought you just said—"

“Just ask ‘what,’ Cas.”

Blue eyes narrow.

“What?”

Dean licks his lips.

“’Are you _fur_ real?’”

For a long, long moment Cas stares, expression twitching through various states of confusion. Then, finally:

“Oh.”

He scowls.

It seems like an eternity before Dean can get himself to stop laughing.

Cas likes the nursery, a lot. He passes the rows of flowers rather wistfully, and though Dean offers to have any he wants picked up, Cas declines.

Trees are one thing; he’s not sure why, but he’s determined to see all his flowers come up from seeds.

Anyway, more distracting than the flowers is Dean’s particular mood, today. It could be Cas’s imagination — after all, it’s no coincidence that Cas agreed to come out after being left mostly alone for days on end — but Dean seems to be in unusually high spirits. He offers a string of baseless advice on selecting trees — ‘that one looks like a bruiser, Cas, keep it away from the others’ — smirking to himself all the way, but it’s not unkind, the way it has been.

He laughs aloud when he says something especially ridiculous, and though Cas is hard-pressed to understand _why_ he finds himself so amusing, he doesn’t hate the way that laughter follows him as he peruses the saplings.

It’s suspicious, but Cas has been lurking in his own bedchamber for days, feeling increasingly apathetic and exhausted in a way he only remembers feeling once before; he won’t pretend the plants and evening air are the only thing refreshing him.

“Thank you for the trees,” he says later, carefully reevaluating his plans as he scouts out spots to plant them into. The plot he’s been given is rather large; he chose half a dozen trees, and he intends for most of them to eventually shade part of the terrace.

“No problem,” Dean says, sounding like it really isn’t. He’s lying back on the grass today, head cushioned on both his own jacket and Cas’s impulsively volunteered one.

Cas is a little ashamed, that he can be bought so easily with such little kindness.

“Does anyone use the terrace?” he asks. It’s not the first time he’s wondered about it, but he hasn’t been in a mood to ask questions, any more than he thinks Dean’s felt like answering them.

Dean hums.

“It’s off the infirmary. Patients need fresh air and stuff.”

It’s not what Cas was expecting to hear, and it gives him a strangely warm feeling, to think his garden might be here for them when they come out, even if it’s of somewhat amateur design.

“Will someone else maintain it? The garden, I mean. After I go.”

“Oh. Uh. Probably? I don’t think the groundskeeper would let it die. Might put the grass back on, but I doubt it. I’d think the patients would like it being there.”

“I hope so,” Cas agrees, liking the idea more and more.

He suddenly feels sorry for his garden, that he ignored it for several days.

He gives the dirt a consolatory pat, then starts digging a space out for the three-foot-tall apple tree he’s planting first.

Anna always loved the apple blossoms.

A part of him wanted to tell Dean that, at the nursery. The longer he’s here, the more his sister’s absence seems to sink in, the more it makes him miss her. He didn’t just want to tell Dean that she liked the apple blossoms; he wanted to tell him a lot of things about her, that she’s the one who ran away, that she probably wouldn’t have, if she’d known Cas would take her place.

For some reason, he wants Dean to know there’s someone out there who cares about him. That he’s worth caring about, at least to that person.

He wants to remind himself.

But he doesn’t, because there’s also a part of him that keeps her like a precious secret, and he’s afraid if he tells, it might somehow be taken from him. He doesn’t know _how,_ but he’s been surprised enough times since arriving here that it’s not worth risking.

“What’s your favorite kind of fruit?” he says instead, and Dean doesn’t hesitate to answer.

“Anything baked in a pie.”

Cas pauses.

“That was not the question.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“Assume it’s raw. What’s your favorite fruit?”

Dean sighs.

“Not a big fresh fruit and vegetable person, but cherries are alright. And you can’t beat watermelon in the summer.”

“How else do you get it open,” Cas murmurs, scooping a little more dirt out of the hole.

There’s a strangled noise, followed by sputtering.

“Did you — did you just — did you make a _joke_?”

“I make plenty of jokes, Dean.”

“Sassing me doesn’t count.”

“Then _that_ didn’t count.”

Dean laughs, loud and bright.

“Ass,” he chuckles, sounding much too pleased for it to be sincere.

Cas just shrugs and plants his apple tree, attributing the warmth on his neck to the setting sun behind him.

Two days after the wildly successful visit to the nursery — at least, Dean thought so — Kevin delivers the mail.

“Oh — there’s also — I didn’t know what to do with it, and I was going to give it to Kate, but my mom said I had to ask you first because apparently there’s rules about this kind of thing?”

He hands over a final letter, elegant cursive in dark navy ink scrawled on the front.

_Castiel Novak_

_Winchester Castle_

There’s no return address.

“Yeah. Yeah, your mom was right, he’s not, uh, he’s not supposed to get letters.”

Kevin looks surprised, then confused, then a little critical.

“But that seems kind of—"

“Thank you, Kevin,” Dean interrupts, and quickly shuts the door.

It’s not that he doesn’t get how Kevin feels; he feels the same way, and he’s pretty sure most citizens under thirty are right there with him. They didn’t grow up with it, and not only is it weird, but almost three centuries after that tradition started, it also seems shady as fuck.

Anyway, everyone in New Eden knows they’re not supposed to write. Is this correspondence about Cas’s evil plans? Are they checking on his progress? And if so, why wouldn’t they try to hire someone to sneak it to him? Surely they didn’t expect it to just . . . slip through the castle post?

On the other hand, Kevin’s first impulse was to just bring it right up to him, so maybe they did.

At any rate — Dean better check it out.

He pulls out his pocket knife, neatly cutting through the wax seal, and carefully unfolds the sheet of paper inside. It’s all the same neat, pretty handwriting as on the front, and he has no trouble making it out.

_Dear Cas,_

_There are not words for how sorry I am._

_I didn’t know. I didn’t even think of it._

_I would never, ever have left you behind if I had. Please believe that._

_I remain in Winchester, but I’ve been busy, as you can imagine. I won’t lie and say things haven’t been rocky in places, but I can honestly say it’s both better than home and better than I expected._ _I am safe, and I am well, and I have tentative hopes that things should only improve from here._

_The only thing missing is you._

_I wrote as soon as I heard about The Drive. I am so, so sorry you had to endure that. I can’t imagine what else you’ve had to endure, but you’re alive and well_ _in at least some ways,_ _and I know it’s not fair, but I have to ask you to stay that way. You’re the strongest, most stubborn person I know, and you can survive anything._

_And I know that to do that, you have to want to, so please at least want to for my sake. I know it’s selfish, but I have to ask._

_Cas, I just want_ _to tell you — the plan was_ _ always _ _to come back for you. Always. I know I didn’t say goodbye the way I should have, but it was never meant to be permanent. I wouldn’t have done that to you, either._

_I would never leave you to suffer. Remember that._

_I love you, more than anyone or anything. I don’t know if they’ll give this to you, but I doubt they’ll let you answer it._

_I’ll write again, anyway. Take care of yourself, Cas._

Dean flips the page over, but the letter appears to be unsigned.

It doesn’t matter, though. Dean wouldn’t recognize the name, anyway, and it’s obvious who it’s from.

It’s obvious what they _are_ to Cas.

So maybe it wasn’t _that_ farfetched, thinking of Cas leaving behind a mate to come exact his revenge on Winchester. Obviously, they weren’t mated, and it sounds like this asshole did the leaving first — probably went off to seek his fortune or something, trying to get to a place where he felt like he could ask for Cas’s hand — but clearly, he was expecting Cas to still be there.

Clearly, they had an understanding, of some kind.

And _apparently,_ he loves Cas more than anyone or anything.

Dean reads the letter again, thinks about it, and then reads it a third time, a cold sort of fury churning in his gut.

And then he decides he needs to know more. And to do _that_ —

Well, he thinks grimly; it looks like Cas’ll be getting a letter after all.

He heads to Cas’s bedchamber early, and it’s a struggle to wait to enter after he knocks. He’s not a barbarian, whether there’s a conniving little murderer on the other side of the door or not, but today it’s hard to stop himself from just bursting into the room.

It feels like forever before Cas opens the door, and Dean forces himself to remain calm. He’s not even sure why he’s so worked up. It’s a stupid letter, from a fool who should have known better than to bother, and so long as Cas can confirm, if only by reaction, that the man’s not likely to come after him, Dean doesn’t need to worry about it.

Dean is really, really worried about it, and for the life of him, he doesn’t understand why.

Cas’s eyes widen a fraction when he sees Dean standing there, and they stare at one another for a moment.

Dean thinks he sees Cas’s nostrils twitch, followed by that familiar dip in his brow.

“You’re early,” Cas says.

Dean shrugs, nonchalant, and holds up the letter.

“Yeah. This came for you, and I thought you might want it,” he says casually, offering it to him.

Cas stares at it.

“I thought I wasn’t allowed to have letters,” he says slowly.

Dean shrugs again, trying not to watch him too obviously.

“I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

Finally, Cas reaches out to take it, though he still looks confused.

And then he sees the front and — bingo. His eyes light up, a look of near wonder softening his features, and he quickly flips the letter over.

When he sees the broken seal, he freezes.

“You opened it.”

“Yeah?”

“You _opened_ it.” Cas repeats, staring. “You — you read it?”

“Well, yeah, Cas. Like you said, you’re not supposed to get letters.”

Cas swallows.

“And if you didn’t like what it had to say. What — what then?”

“Uh. I guess — I probably wouldn’t have given it to you.” It’s a lie, obviously. Dean doesn’t like what it says one bit, but he’s got questions that need answers, right the fuck now, preferably, and giving it to Cas is the only way to get them.

The letter drops to Cas’s side as he whirls, fury in his gaze.

“It wasn’t for you to read.”

Yep, obviously a lover. Or would-be lover. One of the two.

The confirmation ignites the spark of Dean’s own anger, and he crosses his arms.

“Except it kind of was. You said yourself — you’re not supposed to be getting letters. I can pretty much do whatever I want if anyone tries to send them, anyway, and — and you should just be grateful I gave it to you at all.”

Cas stares at him for a moment.

And then he tosses the letter aside and reaches for his neatly buttoned white shirt, ripping it apart.

Dean gapes as buttons bounce across the floor, skittering every which way as Cas reaches for the hem to yank it roughly over his head.

“Dude, what — what the hell are you _doing_ —"

“ _Do it!”_ Cas shouts, taking a step forward, breaths short, red in his cheeks. Dean knows, instinctively, that it’s all anger that’s putting it there. “Just _do it_ , do it and get it over with so I can _leave,_ because I’m tired of being here and you don’t want me here in the first place.” Cas’s eyes drop, and then he’s fumbling for the tie on his trousers, shaking his head. “And why would you? I’m a — I’m a _broodmare._ So just — use me and be done.”

Only then does Dean overcome his shock, enough to understand what he’s saying.

What he’s trying to _do._

He stumbles back, horrified.

“No — no, Cas — Cas, _stop,_ put your clothes back on—"

“No!” Cas snaps, frustrated as he tugs clumsily at the laces. “It’s been over a _month,_ I know you didn’t bring me here to grow a — a fucking _garden,_ and I just — I just want to leave, and I can’t until you do what you’re _supposed_ to!”

He looks back up at Dean, eyes wet and full of — of _pain,_ raw and wild and unmistakable in its depth. The lingering sweetness of his scent in the room is completely gone, overwhelmed by cold moss and dead branches and an awful blend of anger and misery, so terrible Dean can’t help but recoil.

Guilt washes over him. For a moment, he wants to step forward, wants to grab Cas’s hands and hold them still, wants to tell him to please calm down because Dean’s sorry and he’s going to fix it and then he’ll make sure Cas never feels like that again.

But then — he remembers. Remembers that that must be what Cas _wants_ , that it must be a — a _ruse_ of some kind, meant to overwhelm his instincts and force him to act. Or maybe — maybe Cas really is _that_ fed up with his mission, is ready to kill Dean and just hasn’t been given the chance.

Dean doesn’t know. He feels awful, and it’s like his brain is screaming at him to _do_ something about this, something that will make Cas stop looking and smelling like that, but he can’t. He needs to — to get _away,_ to figure out what he _actually_ should do.

“No,” he says again, a little hoarse, and quickly backs away, toward the door. “No, I’m not — we’re not doing that.”

Cas’s shoulders slump, and he just — he just _looks_ at Dean.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please, Dean, _please—"_

Dean shuts his eyes, not quite able to stand the sight of Cas begging like that, tears ready to spill over at any moment.

This time, he just shakes his head and quickly stumbles out the door.

Cas hasn’t cried like this since he was a child.

_You’re a man, Castiel. Men don’t cry._

Or so Father told him. And when Cas presented, almost ten years later, he still didn’t cry.

He didn’t know what rules applied. No one told him, anymore, but God help him if he failed to follow them, anyway.

He feels like that again, like he did that first year after he presented. Like a rug has been pulled out from beneath his very feet, and suddenly he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do, or how bad it will be if he does the wrong thing. He has no idea what to expect, and he feels completely and utterly helpless to do anything about it.

He cries half the night, he thinks, waking up in the middle of it and crying some more, the darkness and disorientation somehow bringing out the worst of his despair. He falls asleep again in the greying light of early dawn, and when he wakes, sun bright and breakfast cold on his table, he feels strangely empty.

He tugs the blanket off the bed, wrapping it around his shoulders like a shawl, and scoops Anna’s letter up off the floor.

Then he grabs the mug of cold coffee off the table and settles back on the bed to read it.

When he’s done, he finds himself able to cry just a little bit more.

Cas reads his sister’s letter a few times over the course of the day. Dean doesn’t show up for their riding lesson, but Cas forgets it, anyway, not remembering until the sun is halfway down.

He’s thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it some more, and he understands what Anna was afraid of.

_You’re the strongest, most stubborn person I know, and you can survive anything._

_And I know that to do that, you have to want to, so please at least want to for my sake._

There is a part of himself, Cas thinks, that woke up today and did _not_ want to.

But Anna is out there, and he loves _her_ more than anyone or anything in this world — and if this is what she’s asked of him, then this is what he’ll do.

What he cannot do, he decides, is continue in this back and forth of tension and antagonism with Dean. He was angry, and he was right to be angry — but it doesn’t help him.

Cas is more fragile than he knew, and while there was some peculiar satisfaction to be found, being so bold with Dean — feeling free to — he’s _not_ free.

He never was, and he never will be.

The thing to do now is to accept that, and finally, actually try to make the best of it. Sitting in tense silence with and snapping at Dean is not making the best of it, even if it made him feel better, for a time. At this point, he just needs to let it go. This is . . . it’s his life, now.

And he’s tired of feeling worse and worse about it. He never thought he’d miss New Eden, not when Anna was no longer even there, but he does, because in New Eden, he woke up and did what he was supposed to and he didn’t worry about whether it was fair or not. He didn’t trouble himself with things he lacked, or things he wanted.

He needs to relearn how to set all those things aside and just _live._

And because his life now consists of this room, a garden, and Prince Dean of Winchester—

He’s going to have to try to make the best of all three.

Cas supposes he can attribute it to his unusual state of mind, but at eleven o’ clock, when he’s lying in bed, wide awake, he suddenly gets it into his head that he wants to work in his garden.

In fact, he has an acute sense that if he does _not_ go work in his garden at that very moment, he may actually go insane.

It is with this very real-seeming fear that he slips out of bed, throws his nice tan coat over his white pajamas, and quietly steals down the hall. There’s a guard there, as there always is, and Cas feels the frustration of being thwarted — but instead of turning back, he leans against the wall around the corner and waits. He’s not sure how long he waits, but it doesn’t feel like more than twenty minutes have passed before the guard shifts, glancing about, then wanders down the hall and disappears into a room.

Cas doesn’t know where he went, or how long he’ll be gone, but as soon as the door shuts behind the man, he walks briskly toward the stairs and heads for his garden.

The castle is like a different place, in the middle of the night, eerily silent and shadowed in a way he’s never seen it, even when Dean walks him back after their evening gardening sessions. Cas is determined to wait to light his candle until he’s made it outside, but it does make finding his way difficult toward the end; the wall sconces immediately on the way to the door they usually leave out are unlit this time of night, and he nearly misses it altogether.

The moment his bare feet touch the stone steps outside, cool night air rustling past him, he feels a blissful sort of calm wash over him. The moon is full and bright, illuminating his path, and Cas leaves his candle and matches by the door. It feels like a blessing, or even a sign, and he makes his way to his garden with a strange sense of purpose.

The light is even better, there, spilling clear and white over all his neat little plots and infant trees, and Cas relishes the unfamiliar feeling of dirt and grass beneath the soles of his feet.

It feels — pure, and _right_ , and on impulse, he shrugs out of his coat and lets it fall to the ground. Then he closes his eyes, letting the crisp air and the rich scent of soil surround him, the moonlight almost tangible against his skin.

He stands there, silently existing, until the chill becomes too great and the clouds pass over the moon.

And then he picks up his coat and gets to work, strangely calm.

It’s three in the morning before he finally goes back inside; it takes a while for the guard to leave again, but the wait feels like nothing to him.

When he finally makes it to his bed, he falls right to sleep.

“Something on your mind?” Sam asks, after about half an hour of staring at Dean over the top of his book with imploring doe eyes.

(Dean may be exaggerating.)

“Nope.”

“Really?” Sam presses. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Okay. So your bitchy mood ever since you took The Drive is just a coincidence.”

Dean narrows his eyes.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Sam rolls his eyes, finally setting down his book.

“You fucked up,” he says bluntly. “And I’m not talking about Dad and the council. I’m talking about _Cas._ ”

Dean tenses.

“Well, don’t.”

“What I don’t get is why you did it,” Sam continues, looking thoughtful. “I mean, you were acting weird when I asked about his looks, but I wasn’t expecting _that._ I mean, wow. I’m not usually into men—"

“And you better fucking stay that way,” Dean interjects, a hot flush of irritation sweeping through him, but Sam ignores him.

“But Castiel’s — _gorgeous._ Like, he lives up to his name.”

Why the _hell_ does everybody but Dean know about Cas’s goddamn name?

“Yeah, well, too bad you’re not the heir, Sam.”

Predictably, Sam keeps ignoring him.

“Which — it made more sense, how weird you were being about it when I asked. And then Charlie told me what Benny said about you making an ass of yourself—"

“I did _not_ make an a—"

“And I would have figured, ‘ah, that’s why,’ except — why did you do to that to him?”

Dean falls silent, determinedly looking at the table.

“I didn’t do anything to him.”

The ensuing silence is _incredibly_ judgmental, and Dean lets out a huff.

“He _asked_ for the dress. All I did was tell Pam to give him whatever he wanted.”

“You had to have known—"

“Not my fucking problem, Sammy.”

Sam leans forward, hazel eyes curious and intent.

“ _That._ That’s what I don’t get. Right now, we should all be getting ready to stage an intervention so you don’t get your heart broken — but we’re not. Because you’re behaving like _this._ ”

“Annoyed that I have to deal with this stupid tradition in the first place? Makes perfect sense to me.”

Sam shakes his head.

“No. No, you were getting all — _you,_ before you left, and not just for your own sake. And here Cas is, pretty and vulnerable and all the things that would usually make you go all alpha hero, even if you _didn’t_ like him, but instead you’re practically tormenting him. It’s — it’s completely out of character for you, Dean”

“I told you,” Dean mutters. “He’s got a bad personality.”

“Bad enough for you to humiliate him in front of the entire city?” Sam counters, the silent disapproval of the last several days suddenly a lot less silent.

“I did _not._ He did that to himself,” Dean insists. “And — and if you knew what he was really like—"

“Well, tell me. What _is_ he like, Dean? Because I’m really confused, and maybe I shouldn’t be saying anything—"

“You’re damn right you shouldn’t—"

“But it’s clearly eating at you. So instead of — _sulking,_ like a little kid, tell me. Maybe I can help.”

Dean glares at him.

“He’s trying to kill me,” he announces, satisfied when Sam pulls back, shocked. “And I’m not sulking. I’m stewing, because Cas got himself into this mess and now I’m the one having to deal with it.”

Sam blinks.

“Um, Dean? As far as I know, Cas didn’t get a say in it at _all_ . And — what makes you think he’s trying to _kill_ you?”

Dean takes a deep breath, and then painstakingly explains everything he already told Charlie.

Weirdly, Sam seems to be coming down with something, too, except he keeps letting out these weird coughs instead of sneezes.

“ _Wow_. Okay.”

“You see? So you can stop — _white-knighting,_ Sammy, because Cas can hold his own. It’s _me_ you should be worried about.”

Sam nods, gratifyingly serious.

“Dean,” he says gently, looking him dead in the eye, and then — “I really don’t think Cas is trying to kill you.”

Dean stares.

“Are you — _seriously,_ Sammy? Did you not hear _anything_ I just said?”

Sam just makes a sympathetic face.

“Look, this has been — _a lot,_ for you to process. And I know you felt like some kind of evil villain, off to kidnap the princess when you left, and you’re just trying to cope with your feelings—"

“With my _what_ —"

“And I could _kill_ Dad for putting that on you—"

“Hold the fuck up, Sammy—"

“But no matter how tempting it is, you can’t just — shift culpability here onto Cas. It’s not fair to him. You’re all he has now, Dean.”

Dean gapes.

“I am _not!_ ” he snaps. He wishes he hadn’t given the letter Cas at all, for a lot of reasons. “He got a _letter_ yesterday. Wanna know who it was from?”

Sam gives him an encouraging nod.

“Okay. Tell me.”

“His _lover._ From back in New Eden. Guy went off to seek his fortune so he could come back and mate Cas, and when he found out where Cas had gone, he sent him some sappy little lovelorn message of devotion and reassurance. And judging by how _pissed_ Cas was that I read it? That guy’s coming for him.”

He gives Sam a pointed look, satisfied — and is alarmed to see Sam’s eyes soften, expression changing to one of understanding.

“Dean,” he starts, earnest. “I’m not going to pretend it won’t be — _difficult,_ but — if you really like Cas, I think we can work something out.”

“Uh. Wait — what?”

“And even if he used to have feelings for this guy, you said he left, right? That kind of thing is bound to cause a rift. I really think, if you stop pushing him away, you have a chance. You don’t need to panic over this. Even if Dad is pissed at first, if this is what you want — _w_ _e can work it out_.”

Which — that — Dean can’t _even_ -

“Dude,” he sputters. “What part of _trying to kill me_ do you not understand?”

Sam sighs.

“I understand you like him more than you thought you would, and you’re uncomfortable with that, so you’re making excuses to keep your distance. But it doesn’t have to be that way, Dean. You’re a great guy. You don’t have to be jealous, or feel threatened just because Cas’s childhood sweetheart wrote him a letter.”

Dean just _stares,_ utterly speechless, for one of the longest minutes of his life.

And then he leaps to his feet.

“One? I am not _jealous,_ bitch. Two? I don’t _like_ him! I _the-opposite-of-like_ him. He’s cranky and sarcastic and he _wants me dead._ Three? If I end up skewered on the wrong end of a scarecrow in the orchard, I’m leaving a note telling everyone to blame _you!_ ”

Sam’s expression flattens, and he huffs.

“Dean,” he says, in the fucking _voice,_ and nope, Dean’s not doing this.

“Mark my words, Sammy!” he hisses, stomping toward the door. “Cas wants me dead, and nothing anyone says or does is going to stop him from trying!”

He leaves before Sam can say anything else.

Anyway, Sam is batshit insane and probably deliberately misunderstanding Dean in an effort to harass him, so after stewing the rest of the evening and tossing and turning in his bed for an hour, Dean decides to just take _Charlie’s_ advice.

Because Charlie’s a _true_ friend, instead of a nasty little brother who unfortunately remembers all the shit Dean’s ever done to him, and she actually _believes_ in and _supports_ him.

Thus, operating entirely on Charlie’s clear and reliable wisdom, Dean shuffles out of bed shortly after eleven, throws on some pants, and goes to see Cas.

It _does_ occur to him that maybe, just maybe, Cas is asleep right now, like Dean should be, but he dismisses it. Cas was genuinely upset last night. Dean’s mostly just — _conflicted,_ and if even he can’t sleep, Cas is probably pretty restless himself.

Besides, Dean reasons; if he thinks Dean’s coming to see him with an olive branch, he’ll probably be too relieved to be upset about getting woken up, right? Anyway, he gets the impression Cas is really into his novels, so maybe he stays up late reading _every_ night and he’ll just make Dean wait while he finishes his chapter.

Reassured, Dean gives a friendly nod to Ed on his way to Cas’s bedchamber, mentally rehearsing his artfully crafted but still noncommittal apology for the whole letter business. He’ll let Cas think he’s nice and contrite, and then maybe ask about this lover of his — just to provide a friendly ear, of course, to make Cas think he’s sympathetic — and when Cas sees that he’s managed to appeal to Dean’s emotionally sensitive side, or whatever, he’ll seize the opportunity and all murder plots will be right back on track.

Genius.

Unfortunately, Cas doesn’t answer on the first knock. Or the second knock. Or the third, maybe a little obnoxiously loud knock. Dean thinks back to the night he slept next to Cas, if he was really _that_ deep a sleeper, and decides he’d better just go in and give him a gentle shake.

Nodding to himself, he tests the handle, and when he finds it open, he quietly steps inside.

And discovers the whole room empty.

“Everything okay, Dean?”

Dean gives Ed a distracted nod, frantically trying to think of where Cas could have gone.

“Are you sure?” Ed calls after him, and Dean just waves a hand, barely stopping himself from running as he makes his way down the hall. He briefly considers _asking_ Ed, but Cas isn’t supposed to go anywhere without Dean, and Ed would have said something if he had.

Because in theory, Cas doesn’t ever leave his room, and the only places he even knows how to get to are the stables or his garden. For a second, Dean’s afraid Cas snuck off to meet someone in the castle, but then he dismisses it. Cas hasn’t ever had the chance to meet anyone, and people generally don’t wander around in the middle of the night.

Dean checks the stables, first, in case Cas really is running away — maybe he was even more upset last night than Dean thought — but all the horses are accounted for.

So he heads for option two, and when he rounds the castle wall and the garden comes into view, he stops dead in his tracks.

There, illuminated by the bright white light of the full moon, stands Cas. He’s barefoot in the grass, arms loose and just barely lifted, palms upturned. His eyes are closed, lashes casting dramatic shadows on his cheeks, and his chin is tilted up, almost like he’s soaking in the light. In his crisp, snow white pajamas, he seems to glow, like some kind of otherworldly being.

A chill goes down Dean’s spine as he takes it in, and he stays perfectly still, waiting, but Cas doesn’t move. Whole minutes pass, and Dean would almost swear he wasn’t breathing, even though he knows he’s too far away to tell.

Finally, Cas’s hands lower, and Dean quickly flattens himself against the wall, hoping Cas doesn’t notice him.

He’s startled to find his heart pounding, loud and relentless in his chest as he watches Cas turn and kneel in the flowerbeds, calmly beginning to work, movements sure and steady as ever.

It makes Dean wonder.

He wonders what Cas was doing just now, definitely, but he also wonders how often Cas comes out here at night. He wonders, suddenly, what exactly is in Cas’s ‘flower’ beds, and why it turns out he really _doesn’t_ seem to mind gardening.

Dean’s never believed in magic or witches, but watching Cas, glowing in the moonlight, serenely tending his garden in the dead of the night—

Well, it’s kind of freaking him out.

Obviously, Cas isn’t a witch — not a real witch, because witches aren’t real, no matter how creepy Dean always found the stories — but who the hell knows what kind of weird stuff they’re into in New Eden? Maybe _he_ thinks he’s a witch, and even if he can’t cast spells or whatever, maybe he’s growing some stuff in his garden to try and do it _anyway._

And maybe some of that stuff will _work,_ magic or not.

Could _that_ be his plan? Is he going to try and curse Dean? Does he actually want Dean to feel safe and secure so he can get a lock of his hair or a dirty handkerchief or some kind of person-specific ingredient for a ‘spell’ that ultimately just comes down to good old fashioned poison?

Oh, fuck. Dean wasn’t thinking of that. His understanding of that kind of thing isn’t great, but he knows that all the various towns and villages have their remedies and superstitions, and if Cas has been trained in the witchy arts for centuries, carefully brewing various poisons to torment his enemies -

Maybe the carriage-lifting isn’t the only thing Dean has to worry about.

Chilled, he quietly skulks back around the castle, returning to his room with a numb sort of dread.

If Cas flat out _attacks_ him, Dean’s confident he can beat him. Dean’s been trained all his life, and he’s the best in the army, if you don’t count the definitely rare occasions Sam kicks his ass.

But if Cas has something _else_ in mind?

Dean slides into bed, still back on the lawn in his mind and watching Cas bathed in moonlight, hard at work in a garden that suddenly seems far more ominous than it did before.

The game, it would seem, just got a whole lot more dangerous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Invasion of privacy: Cas is not supposed to get letters, but his sister sends one; Kevin delivers it to Dean first, and Dean reads it before giving it to him. Cas is incredibly upset to discover the seal broken.
> 
> Talk of dub/non-con: Deeply distraught, Cas tears his shirt open and tries to convince Dean to just ‘get it over with’ so Cas can simply go to the Gardens and be done here; the stress of his situation is getting to him, and the incident with the letter is the final straw. Dean refuses, of course, but this is a new low point for Cas.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: more of Dean's paranoia, references to poison, please let me know if I missed anything.

“Um, Kate — before you go—"

Kate immediately stops on her way out the door, turning back with an encouraging smile. Cas isn’t stupid; he probably _smells_ sad and pathetic, and Kate’s gentleness with him the last couple of days is probably a direct result of that.

“What’s up, Castiel?”

“The, uh, the kitchen staff — are any of them . . . omegas?”

She looks surprised.

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“I — well. The prince, he — he likes pie. I think?”

Kate snorts.

“Does a unicorn like virgins?”

He frowns.

“Does it?”

“Well, they’re probably not real, but the point is, that’s kind of what they’re known for.”

He nods slowly.

“So Dean _does_ like pie,” he clarifies, and Kate laughs.

“Yeah.”

“I see.” He takes a deep breath. “There isn’t an oven in my room, obviously, but I thought — I’d like to do something for him.” He shrugs. “I couldn’t think of anything else.”

Kate smiles quizzically for a moment, and Cas tries to fortify himself to fully explain the thought — though the answer is almost certainly going to be ‘no’ — when she straightens.

“Oh. You want to . . .?”

He nods, hoping she’s drawn the right conclusion.

“Okay.” She studies him for a long moment, oddly considering. “I’ll see what we can get away with.”

She leaves after that, and although he knows the rules, Cas can’t help but be hopeful. He’s decided on this course of action, decided to try and make a friend of Dean, or at least make his way to neutral ground, and even if it’s _difficult —_ having a sense of direction feels good. He feels less lost, less anxious.

He feels, even if it’s an illusion, that things could be okay. That he could learn to view them that way.

He’s not sure what to expect, come the evening, but he gets dressed a little before Dean would normally be due to show up, and he’s not disappointed.

With a deep, quiet breath, he stands up from the bed and opens the door, suddenly very conscious of how he was when Dean last saw him.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean looks him over, a quick, guarded flick of the eyes, and then nods.

“Hey, Cas.”

They stare at each other for a long, discomfiting moment. If Cas had to guess, he’d say Dean seemed — wary.

Dean looks away first.

“Well. Guess we should go.”

Cas follows him out to the stables, at a loss for what to say. It strikes him, then, that despite all the time they’ve spent together, he barely knows Dean. The reverse, certainly, is true.

“Did you grow up here? In the castle?”

Dean’s steps falter.

“Uh, yeah. Don’t know where else I would have done it.”

Cas tries not to frown at him.

“Well, your mother — she wasn’t a . . . she wasn’t like me.”

“Oh. Uh. No.”

“I just thought — maybe she had a — a home, or family, that you might have . . .”

Dean nods, though he doesn’t look back at him.

“No. No, since my Dad was the heir, she stayed here.”

“Oh. Well. That sounds, uh. Nice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

They walk another minute, and then Cas clears his throat.

“Were you close with her?”

Abruptly, Dean comes to a halt, whirling to face him, green eyes narrowed.

“What’s with the questions, all the sudden?”

Irritation blooms within, and Cas just barely stops himself from snapping back.

“I’m going to be here for a while,” he says, as calmly as he can manage. “I don’t see the point in fighting with you.” _I may be here for a_ very _long while, if_ _you continue at the pace you_ _have been,_ he almost says. “I don’t like conflict.”

Dean snorts.

“Could have fooled me.”

Cas inhales slowly. If he _could_ write a letter back to Anna, he’s fairly certain he knows what he’d spend the first few pages complaining about.

“I’ve had difficulties adjusting. Unlike An- unlike your original sacrifice, I had no expectations of this.”

Dean studies him, openly suspicious.

“And — what? You think you’re adjusted now?”

Cas just lifts his chin a little, staring back.

“I’d like to be.”

There’s a tense silence, until finally, Dean huffs.

“ _Sacrifice,_ ” he mutters. “That’s one word for it.”

He turns and starts walking again, and Cas—

Cas bites his tongue and follows.

Dean always watches him garden — Cas has never understood why — but today, he hovers.

“What kind of plant is that?” he keeps asking, and Cas finds he works much more slowly when he has to stop and explain the kind and purpose of every single thing he’s trying to grow.

Bizarrely, Dean never seems satisfied with the answers.

“Are you interested in starting a garden?” Cas asks, as pleasantly as he can manage. It’s unsettling, having Dean practically breathing down his neck, and there’s something vaguely _combative_ about the way he asks. All together, it’s putting Cas on edge.

“Why, do you think I’ll have time?” Dean retorts, and Cas tries not to frown.

“If this is taking up too much of your time—" he starts, and Dean scowls.

“Not what I meant,” he interrupts, like he somehow expects Cas to know what he _did_ mean.

“I see.”

Cas returns to working a plant food concoction into the soil, determined not to let Dean provoke him.

“What’s _that_?”

“Plant food,” Cas says, not at all shortly. “It helps the plant grow — and it makes it healthier.”

“Oh, I’ll bet it does,” Dean says lowly, and Cas ignores both the obnoxious ambiguity to the words and the way Dean’s scent keeps wafting over his shoulder.

From a practical perspective, it’s a good thing Cas . . . _doesn’t mind_ Dean’s scent. Given that he spent most of his time in New Eden alone, he has no built-in tolerance for having to put up with someone whose scent he finds off-putting.

From an impractical perspective, it’s _annoying._

Still — Cas is trying to be pleasant. Perhaps he should make a compliment of it.

“Your scent is very nice,” he tries, and Dean, perched on his haunches, jerks back and ends up falling on his ass.

Cas keeps his face straight, humming thoughtfully as he dusts his hands off and looks to the next plot.

“Is it?” Dean sputters, struggling to right himself and shooting Cas a look that’s a baffling combination of triumphant and furious.

“Yes,” Cas says agreeably. “It complements the plants.”

Dean squints unhappily, so Cas tries again, trying to project as much sincerity as possible.

“If I have to have someone in the garden with me, I’m glad it’s you.”

He must not succeed — it _was_ a little bit of a lie — because Dean abruptly stands, stomping towards his horse.

“I’m getting some water,” he grits out, and Cas sighs inwardly.

This is going to take a while.

Normally, Dean would be delighted to have a suspicion confirmed, especially given how skeptical Charlie and Sam were, but that was before he thought Cas would come at him with anything other than brute force.

Clearly, Cas _is_ going to try and seduce him — but not so he can catch Dean off-guard and gain the upper hand. No, he’s waiting for an _opportunity._ And if Dean hadn’t caught him communing with the moon or what-the-hell-ever he was doing, the day would come when Cas offered him a sip of water from his canteen or whatever and _Dean would have drank it._

And that’s assuming Dean has to _ingest_ it! What if Cas slips something into his pocket, and Dean doesn’t notice, and he absorbs it through the skin, and he’s in fatal convulsions by dinnertime?

Dean knows fuckall about witchcraft or poisons, which means he has no idea what to expect. And Cas lied very convincingly about what all those plants were — no _wonder_ he wanted the goddamn botany books, he was _plotting_ and he needed fuel for all his _lies —_ but his mood had been weird since Dean picked him up and then as soon as Dean started questioning the plants, he turned around and told Dean he _smell_ _ed_ nice?

Telling someone you like their scent is practically a — a declaration of _courtship!_ Cas might as _well_ have crawled into his lap and asked to be told he was pretty. Hell, Dean won’t be surprised if the prelude to poison is Cas cutting flowers from his garden and presenting them to Dean with a handwritten poem about his goddamn eyes.

Obviously, Dean’s not falling for it — Cas’s subterfuge could use some work, that’s for damn sure — but the fact that Cas is trying means Dean’s on the right track.

Which is _terrifying._

Dean’s a guns-and-swords-and-fists kind of guy. If Cas is too much of a coward to try and kill him directly, then Dean has no idea what all he should worry about. Food, sure, and if Cas hands him a jar of homemade lotion, he’ll know not to rub it on himself, but — but — could Cas sneak into his room and trade out his bath salts? Should Dean take plain baths from now on?

Shit, could Cas be growing something that could make Dean sick from just _air_ exposure? Did Cas spend his childhood in New Eden building up a tolerance to it so he can spend hours breathing in the toxic garden air while Dean’ll be at death’s door in a matter of months?

Oh, God, maybe he should cancel gardening. Except wasn’t the point to expose Cas? And even if he does abort the garden plan, Cas sneaks out at night. Dean could post more guards, but if Cas feels too caged in, he might just bludgeon them over the head and make a break for the stables and disappear into the night and—

“Dean? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” he mutters distractedly, and Charlie squints.

“Really? Because you kind of look like you just got chased out of the woods by a knife-wielding banshee.”

“Banshees don’t use knives.”

She huffs.

“Dude, really?”

“Look, Cas is—" He hesitates, glancing about the rest of the table, then leans in. “Cas is growing poison in his garden. He, uh. I think he might think he’s a witch.”

She stares at him.

“A witch.”

“Yeah. Except I don’t know about that kind of shit, and I’m afraid he might be poisoning me without me realizing.”

“You think he might be—" she cuts off, taking a deep breath and tucking her hair behind her ear. “Right. Okay. Dean? Maybe you should go to the infirmary, because I’m worried you might have been like, exposed to something while you were traveling—"

“What? No, I think I’m being exposed to something _now_ —"

“And maybe you are, but you’re kind of starting to sound a teeny bit, uh . . .”

He scowls.

“Crazy,” he finishes for her, and she shrugs.

“If the shoe fits?”

“Charlie, I’m not crazy.”

“Maybe not, but you’re definitely — I mean — this is getting really _elaborate._ ”

“Yeah, well, tell _Cas_ that! He’s the one who won’t just fight me like a man!”

“Okay, first of all, I _really_ don’t think Cas is trying to kill you. Second, even if he were — can you blame him for not wanting to fight you? You’ve been trained by the best army in the world since you could _walk_ , Dean. And your Dad always insisted you be the _best._ Literally nobody who knows about you would want to fight you.”

Dean clenches his fingers around his spoon.

“Oh, trust me, I’m pretty sure Cas is more capable than he lets on.”

“ _Really_? You think if New Eden could provide that kind of combat training, they’d still be putting up with this stupid tradition?”

He shakes his head.

“No, of course not. And they don’t. But Cas is — Cas is special, Charlie, you can tell. He gets this _look_ in his eyes sometimes, and it’s like all your most basic human instincts tell you ‘nope, don’t fuck with this guy.’”

She groans, and Sam gives them a curious look. Dean just smiles blandly in return until he shrugs and goes back to his conversation with Jo.

“I’m sure Cas is super special, Dean, but either he’s capable of fighting you or he’s a coward. You kind of have to pick one.”

“No, I don’t,” he insists. “He _is,_ but he’s choosing not to. And the moment I started asking about his plants, you know what he did?”

“What?” she asks flatly.

“He told me I smelled nice.” Dean grimaces, remembering the way Cas’s quiet, even voice had formed the words, Cas himself still coyly turned away. And then the — the _thing_ his voice did when he said — “And then he told me if he had to have somebody with him in his garden, he was _glad it was me._ ”

Charlie just looks moodily at her bowl of stew.

“Maybe he’s warming to you,” she suggests, then adds, “Not that I know why he would.”

Dean snorts.

“Yeah, last time I saw him he was pissed I read his letter from his lover before I gave it to him. And in an effort to distract me, he pretended to almost _cry_ and basically tried to get me to try and knock him up!”

Charlie drops her spoon. Beside, her Benny shoots her a reproachful look, dabbing a splotch of stew off his cheek.

“He _what_?”

“Yep, made up all this crap about how I didn’t really want him here and he wanted me to just get it over with and send him to the gardens — you know, classic emotional blackmail stuff.”

In hindsight, Dean can’t believe he even _kind_ of fell for it, enough to lose sleep over it — though it’s a good thing he did, since he ended up catching Cas in his nighttime shenanigans.

Charlie gapes.

“Dean, you _asshole._ ”

“What? How am _I_ an asshole? I’m not the one _lying_ and _plotting_ and, oh, right, _trying to murder someone._ ”

Dean feels like it’s a pretty solid point, but for some reason, Charlie’s response to that is to stand up and stalk out of the dining room.

The thing is, Sam Winchester’s brother is a lot smarter than people give him credit for.

The other thing is, Sam Winchester’s brother is also a lot dumber than people give him credit for.

And because Sam Winchester, himself, is pretty much exactly as clever as people give him credit for, he knows when to eavesdrop on his brother’s conversations, and he also knows when it’s a good idea to go up to the fourth floor of the castle and tell Ed he’s just going to look for a certain painting by a certain artist that may have gotten misplaced during renovations.

“Yeah, I’m not really into art,” Ed says, waving him off, and Sam shrugs.

“Well, we all need hobbies.”

Ed nods enthusiastically.

“Harry’s pretty sure there’s a ghost in the West Tower.”

“Oh, is he?” Sam does his best to sound intrigued. “Well, um, you guys let me know if you find anything.”

“Definitely,” Ed agrees, and opens his mouth to keep talking.

“Awesome, talk to you later!” Sam says quickly, and makes his way past.

He slows once he’s out of sight, since he’s technically not sure _exactly_ where he’s going. He’s just resigned himself to some focused wandering when, about fifteen feet down the hall, a wall grate pops out onto the floor with a clang.

He stumbles back, bracing himself for some kind of attack — and then a person crawls out, a tangle of dusty limbs and mussed red hair.

“ _Charlie?”_ he exclaims.

The pile freezes mid-cough.

“Oh. Hiya, Sam! Fancy meeting you here.”

He narrows his eyes suspiciously.

“Yeah. Where, um, where were you headed?”

She shrugs.

“I was . . . looking for . . . a book. That might have got misplaced during the renovation.”

He snorts.

“Well, then you should have just _asked_ Ed. I mean, wow, he’s kind of a terrible guard.”

“Because guarding is _boring,_ ” she mutters. “Anyway, if shit hits the fan, he’ll be able to tell everybody _you_ were here, but me? Home free.”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“So you’re going to see Castiel.”

“Are you _not_?”

“Of course I am. Dean’s being—"

“A total jerk,” she finishes, looking satisfied. “Anyway, I better chaperone you, so let’s go.”

“ _Chaperone_ me? What do you think I’m going to do?”

She blinks.

“At this point? Not be your brother. Which might just turn out to be a drawer-dropper for the poor guy, so.”

Sam opens his mouth to argue.

Then he shuts it.

“ _I_ wouldn’t let anything happen,” he mutters, and she snorts.

“Still. If he looks like he’s melting over your not-asshole-ness, I’ll distract him. Besides, this way you won’t get in trouble!”

“Um, no, I’m pretty sure we’ll both be in trouble.”

Charlie grabs his hand, impatiently tugging him down the hall.

“Fine, but it’ll be _less bad_ trouble. Now hurry up, I don’t know when they bring him dinner and I don’t want Kate to catch us.”

Sam shudders.

“’Bring him dinner,’” he echoes, shaking his head. “This is so wrong.”

“Tell me about it! And I think there must be something funny in Dean’s pipes, because today he told me he thinks—"

“Yeah, no, I heard,” Sam interrupts.

“Like, I’m not the only one who thinks he’s crazy, right?”

He just sighs.

“He’s not — _crazy._ But he is _Dean,_ and — I mean, you remember how freaked out he was before he went to New Eden, right? I don’t think he was expecting Castiel. And now he’s trying to deal with it.”

“By being _crazy,_ ” she insists. “I totally sympathize, but _come on._ He’s dealing at _Cas’s_ expense.”

“I mean, kind of, but — I think, deep down, he’s probably afraid of what he’d accidentally do if he just accepted the fact that he liked him. Like, really liked him. Castiel is trapped here and Dean’s the only person he sees; in some ways, it’s — it’d kind of be a _problem,_ wouldn’t it? If he was being too nice? I mean — isn’t that what you were just worried about with me?”

Sam _has_ given this a lot of thought, and he sees Dean’s dilemma. He thinks Dean is handling it in probably the worst way conceivable, but he does understand.

Hence why he, a modestly clever person and a caring brother besides, is trying to fix it.

Charlie makes a face.

“Okay. Okay, _fine,_ that would be — weird, but — but you know what? That’s why we’re gonna go see him.”

Sam nods, relieved they’re on the same page.

“Exactly. And maybe, when Dean eventually realizes he’s full of crap . . .”

“He can stop being a dick!”

“Well, that, and there might — you know. Be a future for them.”

Charlie looks skeptical.

“Okay, not that I don’t agree that Dean is butt over teakettle for our fair New Eden friend, but — you really think the council will go for that?”

Sam shrugs.

“They let Dad marry Mom.”

“Yeah, because your Dad was an only child. Big wild crush or not, I don’t see how Dean can turn it into anything without renouncing the throne.”

He makes a face. It’s selfish — and Sam would do his duty, if it _was_ his duty — but he’s never envied Dean his future.

“As hard as Dad is on him, he wants it to be Dean,” Sam protests. “I think we can figure something out.”

“If you say so.”

He can tell she doesn’t believe him, but Sam — Sam has faith.

He just also needs to have a brother who’s not so much of a dumbass.

Charlie leads him to a fairly innocuous looking door, where she straightens up and carefully knocks.

“Cas? It’s Charlie.”

There’s silence, then rapid footsteps before the door gets thrown open, the beautiful guy Sam saw leave for The Drive peering out with hopeful eyes.

Charlie grins, a little sheepish, and spreads her arms wide.

“Yup, here I am!”

“Oh,” Castiel says, looking a little hesitant — and then he steps forward and hugs her.

Charlie lets out a startled squeak.

“Oh — I didn’t mean — but actually — you know what, yeah! You deserve a hug!”

That said, she wraps her arms tight around Castiel and squeezes like her life depends on it.

From Sam’s vantage point, he can see the surprise and relief on Cas’s face, the way he smiles almost _bashfully,_ and although it’s kind of heartwarming, it also makes him sad.

He can’t believe anyone in the kingdom can _support_ this.

Eventually, Castiel pulls away, looking equal parts uncomfortable and apologetic.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, but Charlie squeezes his arm.

“No, no, it was a good hug, you did great!” Castiel’s lips quirk, uncertain, and she shrugs. “And I brought a friend! But don’t hug him or else you’ll end up with a faceful of armpit.”

“Charlie,” Sam hisses — he could be meeting his future _brother-in-law,_ for God’s sake — and puts on his friendliest smile, offering a hand. “Hi, I’m Sam. Dean’s brother.”

At that, Castiel’s face falls a little.

“Oh.” He gives the hand a wary look, then awkwardly reaches out and shakes it. “Hello, Sam. Dean’s spoken of you.”

Alarm fills him.

“Oh, um, has he? Like, spoken of me how?”

“Uh. Nothing specific. He complains about how large you are,” he adds bluntly. “Though he seems very fond of you.”

He says it like he’s not sure it’s a good thing, and God, Sam doesn’t even want to _know_ how awful Dean’s been to him.

“Ha, right. He is. I mean, _I’m_ fond of him — more than, even — but you . . . well, you’ve probably noticed he can kind of be an ass, too.”

Castiel squints uncertainly.

“Perhaps,” he says cautiously, and Charlie snickers.

“It’s okay. You can say ‘yes.’”

“Alright. Then — yes. Your brother can be an ass.”

Sam smiles back, unperturbed. It’s a good sign, that Castiel’s thinking of Dean in those terms, because Dean _is_ an ass and if he wants to steer clear of any weird captive dynamics, it’s important that Castiel not lose sight of that.

Of course, it’s also important Castiel see that Dean’s a good guy, too, but — well. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

“Yeah. Especially lately.” Sam clears his throat, awkwardly rubbing his neck. “So, um. We thought you might not mind some company?”

Castiel tilts his head.

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to have company.”

Charlie rolls her eyes.

“Stupid rules. They say it’s protect the legitimacy of the line, but I think it’s just sadism, plain and simple. _Anyway_ — is now a bad time, or . . .?”

She looks pointedly over his shoulder, and after a moment, he hastily steps back.

“No. No, of course not, please come in.” He looks down. “And . . . thank you. For coming to see me. I hope you don’t get in trouble.”

An upset look flashes across Charlie’s face, but then it’s all bright eyes and a sunny grin again.

“Worth it,” she says firmly, and Cas blinks. “ _So_ — where are you at on the reading list?”

“Oh — well — I’m in the middle of the one about a siren leading a sea creature resistance and kidnapping one of the human army generals?”

“Ooh, yeah! Did you get to the part where he tries to escape from the cove she tied him up in?”

Sam doesn’t say much — he can tell his presence is making Castiel a little uncomfortable, and he’s pretty sure it has everything to do with his relationship to Dean. Castiel’s either the quiet type, overwhelmed by the company, or both, but Charlie manages to chatter on about books and the city and when two hours have passed and it’s time for them to leave, he seems reluctant to see them go.

“We’ll come back again,” Sam assures him, though he knows he’s not much of a draw, and Castiel nods.

“Alright . . . I look forward to it.”

Sam can tell he means it, and the look on Castiel’s face kind of has his heart squeezing painfully.

“Same, Castiel.”

Castiel looks at him, hesitating. And then he draws in a deep breath and offers:

“You can call me — Cas.”

Sam is honestly so touched his eyes nearly get misty.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay — Cas. Thank you.”

Cas nods.

“Then . . . good night, Charlie. Sam.”

They say their own goodnights and head down the hallway, where Charlie reluctantly crawls back behind the grate. Once he’s secured it behind her, he wanders back toward Ed, a little disheartened.

He loves Dean, but God — his brother really _is_ an ass.

For some reason, Charlie and Dean’s brother — _Sam —_ visiting makes Cas want to read his letter from his sister again, so as soon as they’re gone, he tucks himself back into bed and pulls it out of the drawer.

He doesn’t cry, but his chest feels tight afterward, though it’s not in an entirely bad way.

He feels — human, somehow. Or as human as he ever does. They must have stayed for hours, and Cas feels a little drained now, yet it was still hard to see them go. He sees Kate a couple times a day — sometimes more, depending on who brings him coffee or snacks — and he supposes Dean’s company isn’t _completely_ useless, but — Charlie sat across from him at the table and looked into his eyes, and though Sam was quiet, he had a — a _kind_ atmosphere to him, listening to them talk with patient interest. It all gave Cas a peculiar sense of _existing._

Not even in New Eden can he remember people interacting with him quite like that.

Cas does feel drained, and yet, he also feels — almost exhilarated.

He tucks Anna’s letter back in the drawer and lies down, though he doesn’t bother retrieving his book. He doesn’t think he can focus on it at this point, his mind returning to various points in the conversation, replaying it. Charlie brought up a book where a man could fly, and Sam told a story about pretending to be a bird and leaping off the roof of the gardener’s cottage, injuring himself to the point where Dean had to carry him all the way back to the castle infirmary.

There’s something about Sam, Cas decides, that reminds him of Dean the night they met. Cas has wondered if he imagined that, somehow remembered it wrong, but whatever indefinable thing he noticed in Sam makes him think it must really have been there in Dean.

He’s not sure what to do with that connection, so he files it away for later and thinks of how Charlie giggled when he told her about playing mermaids with his sister in the river, about how they were scolded for _hours,_ but they went back and did it again the next day anyway.

After all, Charlie has bright red hair and clever eyes and she smiled at him in a way he could almost believe was _fond;_ how could he _not_ tell her things about his sister?

Anyway — he’s not sure whether he can believe them when they say they’ll come back, and he’s unfairly troubled by the fact that they couldn’t tell him exactly _when,_ but he does believe they intend to, and that thought is enough for now.

And when Kate comes in the next morning, smiling smugly and letting him know pie lessons will be held in the kitchens at two o’ clock . . .

For once, the future almost looks bright.

The happier Cas seems to get over the next two weeks, smiling to himself in the garden and regarding Dean with much softer eyes than anything he’s seen to date, the more alarmed Dean gets.

Cas shrugs out of his coat and hands it over without a word when they go out now, so Dean can use it as a pillow on the grass, and he’s even started making polite conversation, asking Dean if they sing certain songs in Lawrence, or where he’s been outside the capital, or if he reads the same books Charlie does. And Dean has no choice but to answer, because he can’t very well ask Cas outright when he’s planning to kill him, and every single time, Cas looks surprised and pleased, no matter how cranky Dean is about it.

“You’re a good storyteller,” Cas remarks one time, when Dean accidentally gets sidetracked and launches into a _hilarious_ anecdote about Ash and a market stall with foreign fruit at the border, and Dean is so flustered by his mistake he pretends to take a nap afterward, furious with himself for falling for it.

Even worse are the days when Cas _doesn’t_ talk, instead humming off-key to himself as he works, and adding breaks to the routine, breaks in which he just sits quietly in the shade, looking wholly at peace.

Clearly, he thinks he’s _winning._

And the closer he gets to thinking he’s _won,_ the closer Dean comes to a brush with death he’s not entirely confident will just be a _brush._

It makes him antsy and nervous and grumpy and for the first time in _years,_ Bobby dismisses him early from training.

“You’re gonna hurt somebody — probably yerself.” he grouses. “Go to yer room or somethin’, ya idjit, and don’t come back til you’ve fixed it.”

Dean goes to his room and _sulks,_ but he certainly doesn’t fix it.

_He_ isn’t the problem.

_Cas_ is. Cas with his disconcerting little smiles and warm blue eyes and sure hands carefully holding the watering can over all the healthy-looking green shoots piercing the soil he laid down. Every time they go out and Dean notices how much more they look like _plants,_ plants that a cold-hearted would-be-witch assassin could maybe start harvesting soon, he swears his blood gets a little thinner.

The fact that Cas actually _smells_ happy, bright and unfairly appealing to Dean’s moronic instincts, helps not at all. One day finds Dean huddled on the ground, trying not to think of collapsing into his dinner, foaming at the mouth by this time next week, when Cas turns and asks him to push the wheelbarrow over.

And then a breeze stirs, carrying wisps of sweet rain and pure contentedness with it, like some kind of instant calming drug, and in a daze, _Dean actually does it._

Even _Cas_ looks surprised, giving him a cautious thank-you completely at odds with his recent wily behavior, and Dean sulks so hard the rest of the night he has trouble sleeping.

Basically — it’s driving him a little bit _crazy._ All the fear and anger and — and confusing hormones — it’s just -

Dean’s not sure how much more he can take. Obviously, he’s not about to let Cas win their little game and leave him behind — leave his _corpse_ behind, that is — to rendezvous with his lover from New Eden and whisk them away into the sunset, a blood debt paid; but _preventing_ that is exhausting and _scary._

He just wants a decent night’s sleep, is all.

Anyway, he’s starting to think it’s time to figure out a new strategy when, one night, Cas makes a request.

“Tomorrow — would you have lunch with me?”

It’s kind of a bold escalation, Dean thinks, but worse, it involves _food._

Food Cas will expect him to _eat_.

He swallows. This — this is _it._ He’s not in love with Cas and he doesn’t think Cas thinks he is, but apparently, enough-trust-to-eat-food-without-thinking is good enough, at this point.

“Sure,” he says casually. At least he knows it’ll be food. Or his drink. One of the two. “What time were you thinking?”

“One o’ clock?”

He nods slowly. Cas must have been preparing for this moment for a while, because the way he looks at Dean, gaze steady, blue eyes utterly guileless, some soft, vague hope in his expression — Dean could almost believe he was being invited for a _lunch date._

“Sounds good.”

But it’s not a lunch date, and Dean—

Dean will need to be ready.

Cas is nervous.

Of course he’s nervous; a sharp-eyed, cheerful woman named Donna has been ruthlessly training him in the art of pie-baking for the last two weeks — “Are you the cook?” “Psh, no. I’m a courtier, sweetie, but I can still teach you to bake a pie to woo even the most stubborn of princes.” “To do _what_ —" “Anywho, let’s get started!” — and even though she and five different maids assured him the cherry lattice pie was both beautiful and delicious, he’s worried about it.

The last two weeks have been — well, they’ve been _good._ Cas wouldn’t presume to call Charlie and Sam his friends yet, but they visit him almost every other day and it’s like the entire world has somehow opened up. He never thought he could enjoy seeing two people argue, but the pair spent a full hour debating a villain in one of the books Cas _hasn’t_ yet read, and it was an undeniable pleasure to listen even though he knew nothing about it.

Dean never mentioned anything about it, but Cas asked them if Charlie was _Sam’s_ sister, at least. Even when they argued like that, there wasn’t any anger.

The answer was ‘no,’ but also, ‘she might as well be,’ and both of them looked happy that Cas had asked.

Although, both of them generally _do_ look happy _._ It’s true that Sam sometimes falls quiet, looking contemplative in somewhat troubled ways, but it passes quickly, and it’s nothing like those moody, sullen silences Dean subjected him to when he first arrived.

As for Dean — Cas likes to think Dean is responding well to his subtle efforts, because while there are still silences, tense and uncertain, he doesn’t sense the same hostility. Dean doesn’t try and antagonize him, these days, often reluctantly participates in conversation, when Cas can think of a way to make it, and a part of Cas almost thinks his strange mood has another source. Dean seems almost — _anxious,_ sometimes, and tired, and since there’s no reason for _Cas_ to make him feel that way, Cas wonders if things wouldn’t be even better if whatever was bothering Dean went away.

(Sam tells stories about him sometimes, stories that make him think they _would_ be.)

Anyway, Cas is nervous, because he _does_ feel good, and he’s smart enough to know that it’s a fragile feeling, precarious in the way all good things are, and if something goes wrong today . . .

Well, Cas is determined not to let it.

So he asks Kate if it’s possible to get a proper bouquet of flowers, describing one that a shy-eyed alpha in the village had brought his sister after her presentation — before the council had come to call with news of their own — and though she surveys him with a puzzled sort of amusement, she agrees to do her best.

Anna had declared the alpha ‘a lovely boy, but still likely to make me throw myself in the river before we’re mated three weeks,’ and yet she still left the flowers on her bedroom dresser until they were completely wilted. Given how happy Cas is with the small cluster of blooms that often show up with one of his meals, he decides it’s safe to assume that flowers make people happy.

And even though his garden is still in its infancy and he cannot personally select the blooms — he still hopes these ones will make _Dean_ happy.

He takes another bath after the pie comes out of the oven, Kate promising to deliver it before it’s time, and then he dons the navy three-piece set Pamela made him order even though it seems too nice to wear on a day-to-day basis.

He wasn’t sure when it came, if it was a good thing, how sharp and broad it made his shoulders look, but Pamela swore on her unknown father’s grave that it was _definitely_ a good thing.

“What if your father’s not dead?” he’d protested, but she’d just laughed in response.

Now, he puts his trust in her judgment, buttoning the waistcoat over a crisp white shirt and then doing his best to smooth his hair down.

He fails, but it occupies his time long enough that he waits no more than ten minutes, hands nervously clasped in his lap where he sits on the bed, before Kate is pushing the door open, pie and flowers neatly arranged on a tray. Behind her are two other maids bearing lunch trays.

“You ready for your big moment?” she asks, once everything’s arranged and the two other girls have departed.

He lifts his shoulders, glancing down at himself.

“I think so.”

With a nod, half-smiling, she leans her hip against the table.

“Hey, Cas, can I ask — why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Baking him a pie. Getting him _flowers,_ ” she adds, looking amused for some reason. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s . . . sweet of you, but I’m not sure he deserves it.”

“I thought you and Dean were friends.”

She nods, studying him.

“We are. But you aren’t.” She sighs. “He hasn’t been good to you. And we’re all very disappointed in him, trust me, but I’d think you’d be worse than disappointed.”

Cas nods.

“I was. But — I’d rather things be _better,_ than be disappointed.”

For whatever reason, Kate looks unhappy with that answer.

“Oh. Well, he does love his pie, so you’ve got a solid plan. I hope it turns out the way you wanted.”

“Donna’s a good teacher.”

She wrinkles her nose.

“Not quite what I meant, but that, too.” She straightens up, tucking her hands in her apron pocket. “He should be here soon. Good luck, Cas.”

“Thank you.” He hesitates. “For everything.”

Kate winks, pointing at him and clicking her tongue.

“Any time.”

Once she’s gone, Cas waits.

Dean arrives at five past the hour, and Cas, nervously straightening the bouquet of flowers, calls for him to come in. He scans the room with a strange expression, and when he finally glances over to Cas, he does a double-take.

“Oh. Uh, that — didn’t — I haven’t seen that one.”

Cas looks around himself, puzzled.

“Seen what one?”

“Nothing,” Dean says hastily, straightening, and gives Cas a hard stare. “So. You wanted to have _lunch._ ”

It sounds vaguely accusing. Cas nods, baffled.

“Yes.” He gestures to the table. “Shall we?”

Dean shrugs.

“Alright.”

He approaches the table slowly, subjecting it to a more careful scrutiny than Cas thinks is warranted for a lunch platter.

“I asked for things you usually like,” he points out, a little reproachful.

Dean’s eyes narrow.

“Yeah. Yeah, it looks like.”

He hovers at the edge, then abruptly jerks his head at a chair.

“Sit.”

Cas blinks at the command.

“Yes, please do.”

Dean’s lip curls, but he drops into the chair and reaches for the plate opposite him as Cas sits down.

“I can—" Cas starts, but Dean grins at him, sharp in a way it hasn’t been, the last couple of weeks.

“Oh, no, let me.”

“Alright.”

Dean portions out food in a decidedly random and haphazard fashion, and once he’s finished, he looks at Cas expectantly.

“Well, eat up.”

Cas was going to _politely_ wait for Dean to start eating first, but if he insists . . .

He suppresses a sigh; of all the days for Dean to be in one of his _moods._

He swears Dean doesn’t eat for the first ten minutes, instead launching into an unusually boring story about training that morning. Cas, for his part, discreetly nibbles a little bit at everything on his plate, just to make sure nothing went amiss in the kitchen. Dean can’t reasonably blame him, if it did, but the point of this is to engender good feelings between them and move forward. Given how sensitive Dean seems to be, Cas thinks it’s better if nothing goes awry at all.

Eventually, Dean seems to relax a little, eating his own food and quieting, though he keeps giving Cas these _looks,_ the significance of which is lost on him.

It’s annoying.

Cas tries to project an air of pleasantness, anyway.

Besides; once Dean stops talking, he makes short work of his lunch, and then it’s time for Cas to pull the silver cover off the pie.

“And . . .” he swallows, hoping Dean won’t be too angry about the broken rules. “I, uh. I baked this for you.”

Dean’s whole body goes rigid, eyes flying to the pie, and Cas awkwardly tries a smile.

“You said — about the fruit. It’s cherry,” he adds quickly. “Donna taught me.”

There’s only silence, Dean staring at the golden brown crust with wide eyes.

Then his jaw tightens, and he looks at Cas, green eyes strangely fierce.

“Huh. I see. You gonna have a piece, Cas?”

“No,” Cas answers honestly. “I’ve spent two weeks practicing, and I’m a little tired of eating pie.”

Dean nods slowly, licking his lips.

And then he _shoves_ the pie off the table and onto the floor, where the dish shatters and the pie inside breaks apart, oozing thick cherry filling on Cas’s bedchamber floor.

For a long, long moment, all Cas can do is stare at it.

When he finally forces his gaze back up to Dean, speechless, Dean looks—

Triumphant.

“I fucking _knew it,_ ” he hisses, shoving his chair back and standing. “I don’t know how you talked them into letting you go into the kitchens, but I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? I knew you’d figure something out, one way or the other.”

Cas looks back at the pie he spent two weeks learning how to make.

“I’m sorry,” he says slowly, although that’s not quite an accurate way to describe the tight, unhappy feeling swelling in his breast. “There were only ever omegas, and you had indicated that rule was someone else’s — but I should not have broken it.”

To his surprise, Dean laughs.

“Oh, cut the fucking crap, Cas. I’m telling you I _know._ I’ve known pretty much from the day you _got_ here, because like I keep telling you? _I’m not as dumb as I look._ ”

No, Cas thinks. Dean is not as dumb as he looks, because Dean doesn’t look very dumb at all, and so is, in fact, much _dumber_ than he looks.

But maybe Cas is a little dumb, too, because—

“I don’t understand.”

Dean scoffs, stalking forward and nudging bits of the pie aside with his boot. Cas winces as some of it sticks to the heel. Half a dozen pies he’d made, just trying to perfect the consistency of the filling without sacrificing flavor in the process.

All for nothing.

“Yeah, you do,” Dean continues, ducking his head to catch Cas’s eye. “The jig is up, man. Your little poison pie is on the floor and I’m still kicking, and I’m going to _stay_ that way, no matter what games you try and play.”

Cas just stares back, thoughts racing as he tries to untangle Dean’s words.

“Poison?” he finally settles on. “You think—"

“I _know_ !” Dean snaps, stepping closer. Cas is too shocked to retreat. “I know you set it up so you could get your little garden, I know about your witchy midnight trips to bask in the moonlight, and I know poisoning me has been the plan all along. You’ve probably got a bag packed and ready to go so you can steal a horse and run off with your stupid lover from New Eden and start a new life. Well, tough luck, buddy, because I’ve known about this for _weeks,_ and it was never gonna happen. So don’t try and lie to me, _Castiel._ You’ve been caught trying to poison the _c_ _rown_ _pr_ _ince of Winchester,_ and no amount of big blue eyes and sad looks is gonna get you out of it.”

Again, Cas is silent, struggling to comprehend the sheer depth of Dean’s delusions.

“The crown prince of Winchester,” he echoes, glancing back to furious green eyes. They’re close, closer than they ever have been, part of some effort at intimidation whether Dean’s conscious of it or not.

But Cas is not afraid of Dean. Dean blusters and snaps and, in this instance, yells, but Dean also has the nerve to stupidly — _stupidly —_ think Cas just tried to _kill_ him, and yet his only response is to launch into a lengthy rant about his own cleverness.

Without another thought, Cas brings his hands up and _pushes._

“You _idiot,_ ” he growls, pushing again before Dean is finished stumbling. His foot bumps into a section of pie dish, and Cas viciously kicks it forward, causing it to fly up and barely miss Dean’s shin.

“Maybe, but not enough to buy any of the bullshit _you’re_ selling—" Dean starts to retort, rallying forward, and Cas plants his hands firmly on his chest and shoves once more.

Dean has to grab hold of the chair to catch his balance.

“Oh, the coward’s way didn’t work, so now you wanna fight me like a man, Cas?” he snarls, stance shifting, and Cas has half a mind to _do_ it, to haul off and hit him like he damn well _deserves,_ to let go and do to Dean what he did to that man in New Eden.

And he almost does. His hands curl into fists, and he almost answers Dean’s words with a blow, almost wants to start something, almost wants to make his struggle against his situation a real, physical thing he can _fight._

But Dean is staring at him, angry and bitter and expectant and, in some bizarre way, _disappointed —_ and Cas remembers, just in time, that he’s _not_ afraid of Dean.

He lifts his hands, but instead of swinging, he snatches the bouquet of flowers off a third chair and tosses them at Dean.

“Those were for you,” he says shortly, and Dean’s gaze drops, bemused, to the flowers at his feet. Satisfied, Cas seizes a clean dessert spoon and bends, scooping up a bite of pie that looks shard-free.

Then he eats it.

Dean’s expression melts into surprise, and Cas chews slowly and deliberately before he swallows, opening his mouth to prove its emptiness. He even lifts his tongue.

“It’s not poisoned. It is very good, though, because I’ve spent many hours in the kitchen baking many, many pies, and I invited you to lunch because I thought I could finally make one you’d find worthy. Because I don’t want to fight you, Dean. I’m tired, of a lot of things, and fighting you is one of them. I don’t know how else to try and prove that to you, but I don’t think I should bother, because you know what? You’re an idiot, and a _brat_ , and God help Winchester if someone so stupid ever actually sits on the throne.”

Dean visibly swallows, opening his mouth.

Cas doesn’t want to hear it.

“No. I don’t care. Whatever you have to say — I _don’t care._ Come to me when it’s t i me . Until then — I’m tired of your company.” For once, Cas can _afford_ to be. “I don’t want to see you if I don’t have to.”

“So the pie wasn’t poisoned,” Dean concedes, jaw tight. “You expect me to believe that’s the end of it?”

“There’s nothing for it to be the end _of,_ ” Cas snaps. “I don’t know where you got the idea that I wanted you dead, because I don’t. Though, I may be reconsidering. So if you’re really worried about it, Dean? Leave me alone. I can’t kill you if I can’t see you.”

“What about your garden?”

Cas closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to think about that. He just wants Dean to leave so he can get lunch cleaned up and then he can try and forget he was ever stupid enough to think things could be okay.

No, he’s going to rot here in Lawrence, hoarding Sam and Charlie and Kate’s company, and then he’s going to rot in the gardens until he’s called back to perform his duty a second time.

He wonders, if his sister knew, if she’d really ask this of him.

“If that’s the price, then so be it.”

“Really.” When Cas opens his eyes again, Dean has the nerve to still look _suspicious._ “Kind of makes it sound like you already got everything you wanted out of it.”

“For God’s sake,” Cas mutters, turning and stalking to the bed. “I like my garden. My garden is one of the only things keeping me sane. If another omega can accompany me, that would be ideal. But dealing with you and your childish attitude and your _delusions_ might drive me _in_ sane, so if I have to give it up? Fine.”

Dean starts after him, grabbing his wrist and tugging Cas to face him.

“This! You get that shit like this is why I don’t believe you, right? You play hot and cold, snapping at me one moment and then giving me sad eyes the next. You’re too tired to leave your room one day and then you’re making me sit in the garden for three hours the next, and then you get a letter from an old lover and start a big fight only to suddenly start playing nice again and baking me a fucking pie. Except I know you’ve been sneaking out and as soon as I called you on your crap, you started playing angry martyr again! _Every_ _time_ you don’t get your way, you come back with some kind of fucking _strategy._ How am I supposed to believe any of it?”

Cas twists his arm, gripping Dean’s wrist right back and holding him in place as they stare at one another.

“Apparently,” he says lowly, “You’re afraid I’m trying to kill you. Well, Dean — you haven’t been the only one trying to survive.”

Dean blinks, and in the next moment, the door opens.

“Thought I’d bring up some extra coffee, to go with your pie,” Kate announces, walking through, and then stops dead at the sight of them. “Oh. Sorry. Am I interrupting something?”

She doesn’t look particularly concerned, fixing Dean with a flat stare.

Cas jerks his arm free and heads over to the table to help her clear a space for the coffee.

“No. Dean was just leaving.”

“Dean can speak for himself, Cas, and he wasn’t finished,” Dean counters, trailing after him.

Kate’s eyes flick between them, and then land on the pie on the floor.

Cas tries not to feel embarrassed. Kate is even more familiar with Dean than he is; she no doubt suspected it wouldn’t go well.

“Thanks, Cas,” she says, and then for some reason steps to the side, shifting the tray—

And then she stumbles, sending a full mug of coffee splashing all over Dean.

“Jesus _fuck,_ ” he hisses, leaping back.

Kate’s eyes widen.

“I’m _so_ sorry, Dean. Look at that, your shirt’s a mess.”

“No kidding, Kate. We’re lucky I was wearing layers, that shit’s still _hot._ ”

“Very lucky,” she agrees, limply offering a napkin. “That’s a lot of coffee. Maybe you should go change.”

Dean scowls, shooting Cas an unhappy look.

_We’re not done here,_ it seems to say, and Cas holds back a sigh.

Right now, there’s nothing he wants more than to be _done._

“Guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

“Sorry. I guess the pie distracted me.”

Dean hesitates, glancing at the mess of pie on the floor.

“Yeah. Yeah, we — we had an accident. Sorry about that.”

“It happens,” she says blandly. “You better go change, though.”

With one last, unhappy glance at Cas, he hastens out the door.

Kate stands perfectly still, listening for a few seconds, and then quickly walks over to shut it behind him. When she turns back around, her eyes are serious.

“I don’t know what he was trying to do, Cas, but if you need me to fake your illness, I’ve got some ideas.”

Cas gives her a surprised look.

“You’d lie to your prince? Aren’t you afraid of what he’ll do if he finds out?”

She huffs, blowing a strand of blonde hair out of her face.

“No. I’m part of Dean’s family. It’ll take more than that to get on his bad side.” She pauses, then continues softly, “You’re not, though. He has his blind spots — and if I have to protect you from them, I will. If his head wasn’t so far up his own ass, he’d do the same.”

Cas nods slowly. He thinks he understands what she means. He wouldn’t have, before Charlie and Sam, but he’s heard enough stories, now, stories where Dean is the man from the first inn through and through, and he does understand.

“He thought the pie was poisoned,” he admits. “That that was why I wanted the garden.”

Kate pulls a face, drawing back.

“Seriously? Oh, my god.” She touches her forehead briefly, sighing. “Oh, Dean.”

“I don’t know why.”

She glances back up at him, looking tired.

“Of course you don’t. It’s probably not a good reason,” she says under her breath. “I guess it’ll look bad if you get sick after eating now, huh?”

It takes him a moment, and then he smiles a little, despite himself.

“I guess so.” If the situation weren’t so _frustrating,_ he might be amused Dean had been afraid of that. Cas has nothing to gain from killing him. In fact, he’d lose what little he does have.

Kate takes her time cleaning up, though he’s not sure there’s much she can do if Dean returns and orders her gone, but the point is ultimately moot.

Dean doesn’t come back.

For four days, Cas thinks Dean has decided to heed his wishes. Twice, two of the maids Cas is less familiar with escort him to his garden, and he’s startled to find it’s _less_ comfortable than having Dean there. The back and forth of their chatter is a background constant he doesn’t enjoy as much as he thinks he should, but he powers through and does the minimum before returning to his chambers, where he passes restless, moody evenings and goes to bed early.

Which — he knows he’s sulking, but he can’t help himself. Charlie and Sam visit him on the third night, exchanging looks far too frequently, Sam visibly desperate to say something, but neither of them mention Dean and Cas is too proud to ask.

A part of him wonders, though. He’s angry with Dean — for an educated man, he’s incredibly _stupid_ — and if Dean honestly still thinks Cas is trying to kill him, then it’s better if they have nothing more to do with one another until the time comes for heirs.

Unfortunately, another part of him is stuck on the last things Dean said, things that, while still utterly offensive in their accusation, sounded like an argument.

But not an argument with _Cas;_ an argument with himself, trying to maintain this absurd fiction that Cas has had murder on his mind.

He wouldn’t have bothered, if he weren’t questioning it.

And — if he’s questioning it, if Dean’s behavior since they returned to the castle is a result of the sincere — if completely unjustified and embarrassingly fanciful — belief that Cas wanted him _dead_. . .

Would it have changed things?

And what happens if he musters the barest shred of sense required to realize Cas _isn’t_ trying to kill him?

Cas tries not to think of his first two days with Dean, muddled as they are by the passage of time and the unreliable nature of memory.

He fails.

So he wonders, and wonders, and then reminds himself that whatever happens, he’ll go to the Gardens. Whether things improve with Dean or not, whether Cas grows irreversibly attached to his visits from Sam and Charlie, whether he sees his garden come to life — he’s going to end up at the Gardens, and he’ll have to leave it all behind.

Still — he learned to bake that pie for a reason. Cas doesn’t want to fight with Dean. He wants Dean laughing and smiling, the way he does in the stories, the way he _sometimes_ does when they ride or garden and he forgets himself. He wants clandestine visits from Sam and Charlie, the affirmation that someone remembers he’s there in the castle and they care enough to come see him. He wants to exchange good mornings with Kate, lightly discussing novels while she tidies his chamber.

He wants, he realizes, not to _have_ to go to the Gardens. Maybe he shouldn’t care, maybe he _didn’t_ care, but he thinks he does, now.

He wants to stay.

It’s still captivity, here, but it’s always been, for him, and it’s a sort of captivity he could get used to.

Is _getting_ used to.

He’s not sure what to do with that; he thinks of writing to Anna, frustrated that he can’t, and then he remembers that she said _she_ would write again.

The odds are good he won’t see that letter — he’s not even sure he’ll see _Dean_ again, anytime soon — but he wishes it would hurry up and come.

Anyway, on the fifth day, the evening knock on his door comes, and Cas answers it, assuming it will be the maids again.

It is not.

“Hey,” Dean says, hovering about a foot from the threshold.

“Dean.” Cas blinks, disconcerted by his own relief. “What are you doing here?”

He briefly worries Dean is here for the making of the heirs — Cas doesn’t understand how it can seem _more_ awkward now than it did the first night after Dean collected him — but then Dean shrugs.

“Thought I could use some fresh air. Wanna go riding?”

Cas hesitates. He knows what he said, last time he saw Dean, but the maids _don’t_ take him riding and if this is an olive branch on Dean’s part, _for real_ —

“Are you worried I’ll try to shove you off your horse?” he asks frankly, and Dean’s eyes widen a little.

Then he snorts, looking down.

“Not tonight,” is all he says, and Cas nods in understanding.

Dean still thinks he _might_ be trying to kill him, but he has doubts.

Cas will take it.

“Alright. Let me get dressed.”

They barely speak the rest of the evening, but Cas can feel Dean’s eyes on him while he gardens, later.

He works until he can no longer see his own hands in the dark.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: the council having problematic discussions of Cas, Cas in heat (non-explicit and not shared), implied/referenced past abuse (details in the notes), please let me know if I missed anything.

“When is the omega’s next heat?”

At first, Dean’s confused, having reluctantly attended the council meeting so he could talk about expiring trade deals, and when the question gets asked, it takes him a moment to realize they’re even addressing him.

“Huh? What omega?” Dean doesn’t know any omegas about to have a heat, certainly none that the council would care about.

Everyone stares at him.

“The omega. From New Eden.”

Dean stares back.

“You mean Cas?” Yeah, he guesses Cas _is_ technically an omega, but Dean’s been a little too busy trying not to get his ass killed to think of shit like _heats._ If you’d asked him last week, he would have said Cas probably knew of some spooky concoction to make sure he didn’t get them. In fact, it had even occurred to him that maybe Cas _wasn’t_ an omega, was faking it, was going to use brute alpha strength to wrestle Dean to the ground and forcibly pour poison down his throat, but some tentative asking around yielded plenty of discouragement as to _that_ possibility, from a scientific perspective, so he figured he was good.

Of course, now he’s not so sure, but he’s also worried the uncertainty could just be him being taken in by a plot even _more_ devious and elaborate than he could ever hope to comprehend—

“Clearly, you’re having no success outside of a heat. Unless you wish to share some felicitous news?”

Dean shakes himself, shooting an irritated look at the councilman. God damn George. Wants to talk _everything_ to death, including Dean.

“Felicitous news?”

George purses his lips.

“Is the omega with child or not?”

At that, Dean outright laughs.

“Ha! Like I’d let him get close enough for that,” he scoffs. Maybe he’s . . . _reconsidering_ the whole murder angle, but for all he knows, Cas could have made himself something to make his _slick_ poisonous.

There’s nothing more embarrassing than dying because you couldn’t keep it in your fucking _pants._

The room is weirdly silent, and Dean drags himself from thoughts of Cas long enough to remember his audience.

“Didn’t think that sort of thing was a problem for you,” Christian interjects. “If you wanted a girl that bad, you should’ve let us send a group back to New Eden to get you one.”

Son of a _bitch._

“No, it’s not — it’s just — uh. I didn’t mean — obviously, I’ve been — close, because you have to be, to do the sex things, but I just meant — look, knocking somebody up outside of a cycle takes _forever,_ and you know, the guy _hates_ me, which just makes it really awkward, and — and I’ve got other shit to do, so I might as well—"

“So we’re to understand you’re not even trying,” Tara interrupts, eyes cold.

Jesus, Dean’s glad his father wasn’t here to hear that. He sounds like a fourteen-year-old afraid of cooties.

“It’s not _that,_ it’s just that I think it would be more productive if I—"

“You spend _hours_ with the omega,” George snaps. “What are you doing, if not that?”

Dean hesitates.

“Uh. Getting to know him?” It’s _kind of_ true. Uncovering his assassination plot is kind of the same thing.

Across the table, Bobby’s face falls into his palms.

“Alright, quit givin’ the idjit grief,” he says, when he looks up again. The warning look he gives Dean is clear in its intent; _just shut up, boy._ “This ain’t easy for him; y’know he weren’t expectin’ to have to do it at all.”

“Whether he expected it or not, it _is_ his duty—"

“Uh-huh, a duty even your King declined to do.”

The table falls silent.

“The King’s duty was to produce heirs,” George blusters. “And Queen Mary, God rest her soul, did her duty, as well. However—"

“However, your King set an example, and that’s the one your prince was tryin’ to follow. Boy deserves some time.”

Dean’s not a _boy —_ he’s twenty-five — but he also knows when to keep his mouth shut, so he does his best to look juvenile and contrite.

Tara sighs.

“It’s been two months. You’ve had time, Dean. Find out when the omega’s heat is and get it done, alright?”

Dean suppresses a groan. He’s still busy trying to find out whether Cas is actually trying to kill him or not, even if a part of him kind of wants to believe the answer is ‘or not.’

“Yes, ma’am. Will do.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Does the council agree to adjourn?”

There’s a grumpy chorus of agreement, and Dean beats a hasty retreat before anyone else can lecture him.

The thing is, while Dean wouldn’t exactly describe himself as a _soft touch,_ necessarily, he’s not immune to the plight of innocents, and he’s definitely weak to any kind of active distress. Even if he doesn’t particularly _like_ someone, he has to hate them pretty hard before he can just brush off their suffering.

Because of that, he knows he’s not completely impervious to _manipulations._

And he’s the crown prince, he expects people to try shit with him, so he’s pretty good about seeing through it, but — but even though absolutely _nothing_ about Cas or his presence here adds up, sometimes he’s so fucking _convincing_ — even if logically, Dean can see how whatever act he’s putting on contradicts one he put on before.

The only thing that would make sense if they _weren’t_ acts would be if Cas was just completely falling apart, here.

Which — the more Dean thinks about it, the more he can maybe, kind of, see how someone in Cas’s _supposed_ situation would be losing it a little. He’s stuck in his room most of the time, never sees anyone but Dean, who is (rightfully) suspicious of him, and he’s just waiting for the day Dean comes and — and — and then ultimately, he gets shipped off to the Gardens to spend more time by himself.

Although at least at the Gardens, he can wander around pretty freely, since all his staff will be omegas and the place is well-guarded.

Anyway, so — yeah. Dean would probably be going a little crazy in his shoes, too.

But that’s if those _are_ his shoes, which — Dean’s not so sure about that. Cas just seems so — he’s so — Dean doesn’t even know how to describe it, but he’s so _much,_ Dean’s struggling to reconcile him with a sacrificial victim from a backwards town in the North, waiting for Dean to terrorize him.

He’s definitely not _scared_ of Dean. In fact, at this point, Dean would generally say he’s more afraid of Cas than Cas is of him, because one thing he _is_ pretty sure of, one thing that increasingly frustrates him, is that Cas seems like he’s figured Dean out. Whereas Dean’s still bumbling around in a pitch black cavern when it comes to understanding Cas, and it leaves him feeling at a disadvantage.

Which — that’s it, that’s what makes this whole thing so weird. And yeah, sometimes Cas acts like he’s got three different personalities, but every time Dean comes to see him, Cas seems _sure._ Like he has a _plan._ The only time he didn’t was those worrying days when he didn’t even want to come out of his room, but other than that, even when the plan seems to do a complete one-eighty . . .

Cas keeps moving forward like a man on a mission, so why the hell would Dean assume he _isn’t_ one?

It’s a massive fucking headache, and no matter how hard Dean thinks about it, he doesn’t seem to get any closer to an answer. He knows what he _thinks_ might be true, or even what he _wants_ to be true, but then it’s a mental landslide of second-guesses because if Cas is as smart as Dean thinks he is, then everything _Dean’s_ thinking right now could be exactly what he _wants_ him to think, and yeah, maybe Dean’s the one who’s losing it.

Because if he believes what he kind of wants to — that maybe, Cas really is ‘adjusting,’ or whatever he called it, and he never seriously thought about killing Dean — then that’s going to be it. Once Dean accepts that as truth, he’s not sure he’ll be able to go back to doubting it.

If he’s wrong, he’s not sure he’ll figure it out again until it’s too late.

He definitely can’t keep playing these weird back-and-forth games with Cas. It’s exhausting, and upsetting, and he’s not getting anything done, and literally everyone he knows is _pissed_ at him. He’s pretty sure Kate dumped coffee on him on purpose, in hindsight, and Sam and Charlie have banded together to form some kind of super-secret club where they whisper and smile and then stare at Dean coldly when he tries to butt in and suss it out. Donna hasn’t spoken to him since the Pie incident, and Jody polished her sword very deliberately when he stopped by for a friendly chat (and not in the sexy way). She’s never even _met_ Cas!

Benny’s still pretty nice to him, of course, but even he looks vaguely disappointed in Dean whenever the Cas issue comes up.

And now the council’s pissed because Cas isn’t pregnant — which is just _unfair;_ even if he and Dean were doing the do every morning and night, it’s only been _two months,_ and don’t these things take a long time? — when all Dean has been trying to do the last couple of months is _defend the kingdom’s security._

(Among other things, but look, he’s allowed his pride.)

Basically, it’s all a mess, and despite all his best efforts, he’s worse than useless right now.

He _has_ to do something different.

What’s more, he has to figure out, once and for all, who Cas is.

Dean thinks back to the council meeting, George asking what he’s _doing_ for all those hours he spends with Cas. Dean had said ‘getting to know him’ because he didn’t want to admit Cas might have been trying to murder him — the council would have overreacted and thrown him in the dungeon or something without letting Dean have any say, even though he’d be the one being wronged and _he_ should get to decide — but maybe he was onto something there.

Maybe the _real_ solution, here, is to spend as much time with Cas as possible?

Dean doesn’t have to consider it for long; he pivots mid-stride on his way to the training fields, heading back to the castle.

More specifically, to the sixth floor of it.

Because while working out his frustration through friendly violence always sounds nice, all of the sudden, an afternoon cup of coffee sounds even _better._

Kevin accosts him on his way to Cas’s chamber.

“Oh, good, Dean! Castiel got another letter. Is it okay to take it to him?”

Which — Dean’s not sure how to answer that.

Truthfully, he _hates_ the idea of Cas getting letters from his lover; if Cas is out for Dean’s blood, then sweet, pining missives are just fuel for his violence, and if he’s not, then — then won’t they just make Cas feel _bad?_ Aren’t they just a sad reminder of what he gave up, when he came here? Really, wouldn’t it be _kinder_ to just not give them to him? Cas said he was trying to adjust. Can he do that if he keeps getting letters telling him what he’s missing out on?

“Uh. Actually, why don’t you just give it to me?”

Kevin nods, rummaging through his bag for the letter, though he pauses before handing it over.

“Did you give him the last one?”

“Uh.”

“Because my mom said I should always ask you, but she also said it’s not right that he can’t even—"

“Yes, Kevin, yes — okay? I gave him the last one.”

It’s a sour memory, no matter what light he views it in, and he’d rather not think about it.

Especially when he doesn’t know what to do with this one.

Kevin nods, satisfied, and then there’s a look of dawning comprehension.

“Oh, you want to give them to him _yourself_ —"

Dean snatches the letter out of his hand, jerking his head down the hall with a huff.

“The castle needs their mail, buddy.”

Kevin looks unconcerned, giving him a bright smile.

“Okay, Dean,” he says, sounding a little smug. “Oh, by the way, why is everyone mad at you?”

Dean glowers.

“Because I’m — I’ve got — there’s just _stuff,_ okay, it’s hard to explain.”

“Huh.” Kevin looks thoughtful, in a kind of suspicious way that has Dean’s hackles up. “You know, that’s what my _Dad_ said before my mom kicked him out—"

“I’ll give Cas his damn letter, now just — get back to work.”

He swears he sees Kevin smirk.

“Sure thing, Dean. Nice talking to you!”

He scoots off without another word, and Dean suppresses a groan.

The whole damn castle, he thinks. He wishes everybody would just mind their own fucking business.

Speaking of which . . .

Dean turns the letter over, away from that stupid, swooping blue script, and eyes the seal.

He could just — take a peek. Cas’ll probably be expecting it, if he’s even expecting Dean to give him this one, and he might not be as upset this time.

If anything, it’s just _responsible,_ as the crown prince of Winchester, to vet his mail for any kind of conspiracy. There’s a reason he’s not supposed to get any.

Dean fishes his knife out of his pocket, bringing the tip of the blade to the edge of the seal — and then he stops. With a sigh, he sticks it back in his pocket and lets the letter fall to his side.

He tells himself it’s because nothing in the letter should make a difference.

“Dean?” Cas is clearly surprised to see him, but it takes Dean a minute to explain because even though it’s two in the afternoon, Cas is still wearing pajamas.

“Is that normal?”

“Is what normal?”

“The, uh, the pajamas.”

Cas frowns down at himself.

“If I know I’m not going anywhere, I don’t know why I’d get dressed.”

Dean looks down at his own pants and boots and shirt and waistcoat and jacket and belt and fucking _pistol holster,_ and feels resentfully overdressed.

“Don’t,” Cas says sharply, and Dean glances up, trying not to pout over it. “Don’t pretend to be jealous of me.”

_But I kinda am,_ he almost protests, but then he thinks about Cas’s circumstances, in the event this isn’t all a horrifying revenge scheme, and he swallows the words.

“Sorry.”

Cas just gives him a short nod and crosses his arms.

“What do you need? You never come this early.”

“Well, uh, I was thinking about a cup of coffee, and since — well, see, I ran into Kevin on my way up here — I mean, on my way to _get_ coffee, I ran into him, and then I figured, hey, I might as well just bring it myself!” Dean coughs, clearing his throat. “And since I’m here, maybe you could, uh, ring for some coffee?”

Cas squints, though he uncrosses his arms.

“Alright. Who is Kevin?” he asks, walking over to the bell system and ringing for someone.

“The mail kid.”

Cas pauses.

“Is he a goat or a boy?”

“What? No, I mean — he delivers the castle post.”

Abruptly, Cas turns.

“The post,” he repeats, looking at Dean with uncertain hope, and Dean feels simultaneously criminal and heroic when he quickly whips up the letter.

“Yeah. This, uh. This came for you, today.”

Cas starts toward him and takes the awkwardly proffered envelope without a word, looking at the address line for a long moment before turning it over.

“Oh,” he says, eyes flicking back to Dean.

Not quite sure what to say, Dean clumsily reaches into his pocket for his knife and offers it to him.

Cas’s lips quirk.

“You’re not worried I’ll stab you with it?”

Dean lets out an uncomfortable chuckle, though he shifts his stance a little — just in case.

“Listen, buddy, I’ll have you know I’m the best soldier in the army.”

“And yet I heard your brother beats you more than half the time,” Cas says, though he accepts the knife.

“Sammy doesn’t count. And anyway, that’s _one_ person. Point is, I’m not about to add you to the list.”

Cas snorts.

“Believe it or not, Dean, I’m harmless.”

He doesn’t look at Dean while he says it, though, and while that could be because he’s breaking the seal on his letter, Dean’s instincts tell him it’s because that’s a _lie._

He’s less disturbed by it than he really should be.

“Mind if I wait at the table?”

Cas nods distractedly, carefully slipping the letter out. He settles on the corner of the bed to read it, and though Dean tries not to stare, he can’t help but discreetly watch out the corner of his eye.

It’s just responsible, he reasons. He’s already taking a risk, not reading it beforehand. He should watch to make sure Cas doesn’t . . . react _suspiciously,_ or anything.

Although the longer he sits and watches him, the more he wishes he _was_ reacting suspiciously.

There’s no murderous glee or dark satisfaction as Cas reads over his letter, so it’s probably got nothing to do with Dean at all. Instead, Cas’s whole face softens, blue eyes warm even half-obscured by his lashes, and the corners of his mouth tick up with pleasure.

There’s affection there, unmistakable, and somehow Dean gets stuck on the way his hands cradle the letter, like it’s one of the most important things he’s ever held.

And sure, Dean’s — _notice_ _d —_ Cas’s hands, before, working in the garden, sure and graceful — but he’s never seen the way they look _holding_ something, careful and devoted, in the bright afternoon sun.

And for the first time, Dean notices the scars on his knuckles. They’re faint, white, and he’s not sure he’d be able to see them if Cas weren’t sitting in full view of the window, bright daylight illuminating every flaw in skin, but they look too old to be from his recent work in the garden.

It’s troubling. Dean wants to ask, but Cas looks so fucking _content_ in this moment that he doesn’t quite dare. Maybe some other time, he decides, and forces himself to turn back to the table before he gets caught staring.

Anyway, it’s — it’s a shame, that a mere letter can make him look like that. Obviously, there’s no way he can be with whoever it is, unless he successfully murders Dean and escapes into the woods, so it kind of sucks that they can apparently make him feel this way, even though it must have been a while since he saw them.

Dean feels bad about it, at any rate, some weird combination of guilt and uneasiness, and something else he can’t quite articulate.

It’s with obvious reluctance that Cas tucks the letter back in its envelope when a maid knocks at the door, and he almost reverently stows it in his bedside drawer before answering.

Dean’s relieved when it isn’t Kate that comes through; he’s known her since they were kids, though she’s several years younger, and for the most part, she’s one of the most easygoing, levelheaded people he’s ever met.

For the most part. If he had to name her fatal flaw, ‘righteous anger’ would be it. Case in point: when her mother first came to the castle, eight-year-old Kate wandered into the courtyard just as Dean called Sam a ‘bitch,’ as he does, and she accused him of being a bully.

And then she straight up _bit_ him.

Anyway, the point is, Dean’s glad she’s not in here giving him the stinkeye or accidentally chopping off a finger with a conspicuously sharp teaspoon or something. It was bad enough worrying about _Cas_ being out for his blood.

The maid who does come — Emily or something, Dean’s only seen her since Cas got here — already has a cup and a pot of coffee, but clearly wasn’t expecting Dean.

“I’ll use my cup from this morning,” Cas assures her, and she reluctantly departs, still shooting curious looks at Dean.

“Good news?” Dean can’t help but ask, though he’s a little afraid of the answer. “In your letter, I mean.”

Cas looks down at his coffee.

“It’s news,” he eventually answers. “It’s nice to hear from someone.”

_Especially someone you loved,_ Dean almost points out, but it’s clear Cas doesn’t want to talk about it.

Of course, if Cas _doesn’t_ want him dead, he can see how he wouldn’t want to talk about his old lover with the guy who’s going to force him to bear his children.

Dean frowns down at his cup, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Uh. Yeah. I bet.”

They’re quiet for a minute, and then Cas speaks.

“Thank you. For the letter.”

Dean licks his lips, swishing his coffee around.

“Sure. It’s not like I’m the one who wrote it.”

“You know what I meant.”

When Dean looks up, Cas is looking back, and it’s clear he doesn’t begrudge having to give his thanks. His expression is open, sincere.

Dean kind of wants to believe it.

He’s a little afraid of what happens if he does.

He looks down again.

“Sorry. About last time. I, uh. I shouldn’t have . . .”

“Ah. Well, you weren’t wrong. You’re not obligated to give them to me in the first place.”

Honestly, the council would probably be _incredibly_ pissed if they knew Dean had, but that’s beside the point.

“Still. That was a — a mistake. I had no right.”

“Technically—"

“Cas,” Dean huffs. “Just — accept my apology, alright?”

Cas cants his head.

“I think demands somewhat negate an ap—"

“ _Cas._ ”

There’s a half-hearted shrug.

“Alright. Apology accepted, Dean,” he says lowly, and Dean has the distinct impression he’s being made fun of.

He decides to let it slide, this time.

“And, uh, you don’t have to worry. I’ll tell Kevin — I’ll bring the next ones to you, too.”

It’s probably better if he’s the one handling the letters, you know, just in case.

“I’d like that.” Cas sort of smiles, clasping his hands together in his lap. “She, uh, she promised she’d write again soon, so there should be more.”

Dean smiles back, although his heart kind of sinks.

She. So — either a lady alpha — _cute,_ he thinks bitterly — or not an alpha at all.

He pictures some utterly perfect bombshell, all long dark hair and sharp blue eyes and high cheekbones and strong, lithe limbs, her and Cas trawling the countryside with pistols and robbing nobles in transit, and he kind of wants to hurl.

Whatever. It’s not any of his business. And it’s all in the past, anyway, even if Dean just agreed to deliver letters from her on an ongoing basis.

And logically, if it turns out Cas really is a guy who just got dealt a shitty hand and is being held captive by Winchester — then he deserves to be able to at least exchange _letters_ with the one he loves, since he’s never going to see her again.

Somehow, Dean’s not feeling very logical, right now.

He shakes himself, glancing back at Cas, who’s sipping his coffee with that same small, barely-there smile on his face.

“What about a statue?” he finds himself asking. “For your garden. Or like, a fountain or something.”

Cas raises his brows.

“I wouldn’t object. Is that an option?”

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely.” Dean clears his throat, drinking the last of his coffee in too big a gulp before taking a deep breath. “Actually — how do you feel about goin’ out today?”

Cas ends up buying a big-ass fountain depicting three fairies pouring water out of baskets, but Dean can’t find it in himself to protest.

He _did_ tell him to pick whichever one he wanted.

Ultimately, Cas attributes his inattentiveness to the various stresses of his situation.

He’s working in the garden one night, Dean hovering off to the side and looking at him, as he tends to do — Cas is still working up to asking him why he doesn’t just bring a book or something — when another gust of wind disturbs him.

Cas grits his teeth. He hates working in the wind. Leaves and dirt keep blowing at him, getting in his eyes and buffeting his arms in a surprisingly uncomfortable way.

Of course, Cas has been uncomfortable the entire day. It’s a little cool, on account of the weather, but Cas has stripped down to his shirt, sleeves rolled up, and he still feels overwarm and vaguely damp.

“Uh. Cas,” Dean starts, and Cas shoots him an irritated look. Dean’s been perfectly pleasant today — has been perfectly pleasant the last several days — and while Cas has generally been appreciative of that (if puzzled and a little wary that he might revert at any moment), he finds himself short of patience today.

It doesn’t help that Dean seems particularly _distracting_ today. Cas is always peripherally aware of Dean — he doesn’t know how not to be — but he usually manages to settle into some kind of focus when he comes out here.

Today, every time Dean so much as shifts or breathes deeply, Cas has a nigh irrepressible urge to turn and look at him.

“What?” he asks, trying not to snap as he forces himself to keep his eyes on the section of grass he’s clearing. He keeps asking for more seeds and expanding his garden outward — it’ll look ridiculous with the enormous fountain he picked if he doesn’t, he reasons — and Dean has yet to try and restrict him.

Anyway, it keeps him busy, and Cas enjoys it, so as long as no one’s telling him to stop, he might as well.

“Is there—" Dean pauses, clearing his throat, and Cas finally lets himself glance backward to where Dean is awkwardly studying him, green eyes bright in the red-orange light of the setting sun.

He shifts, and Cas’s eyes move to his arms, the way they flex beneath his shirt as he balances his weight, clear evidence of all that army training Cas has heard about.

He frowns at himself. He thought he’d trained himself not to look at the prince’s arms, or anything else, shortly after he got here.

“Cas?”

“Hm?”

“Maybe we should, uh, head back early?”

With great effort, Cas halts his compulsive perusal of Dean’s chest and shoulders, forcing his eyes back to Dean’s face.

Dean’s very beautiful in this light, he thinks reluctantly. Dean’s _always_ beautiful, from a purely objective perspective, but he looks almost otherworldly at the moment—

“ _Cas,_ ” Dean says, abruptly scrambling to his feet. “We — definitely — let’s go.”

Cas scowls at him.

“I’m not finished.”

“Right. Right, but —" Dean clears his throat, glancing off to the side, color in his cheeks. “When, uh — I mean — do you remember when — your last heat?”

The words come out almost croaky, and it takes a moment for Cas to process them, because he’s too busy watching Dean’s mouth.

And then, with jarring force, he realizes why he’s been so uncomfortable today.

“Oh.”

Dean coughs, and keeps talking.

“Because — I mean, maybe it’s just me, but — you seem kind of—“

“My heat is probably starting,” Cas interrupts, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I didn’t think of it.”

“Yeah, no, no need to be sorry, just — I think — we should, uh. You know. Go back.”

“Of course.”

He stands, dusting off his pants, and tries not to be nervous.

Several of Anna’s friends had mated over the years, of course, and Anna said more than one of them had confessed that the nicest thing about having a mate was the difference it made during _cycle_. Cas never gave it much thought — he was never going to have a mate, after all — but he thinks of it, now.

And Dean assured him, back at the inn, that he did know what he was doing — although, given Dean’s tendency to suffer from delusions, that’s hardly a guarantee — so he should at least be able to look forward to some relief.

He _should,_ and yet, despite his pure, abject hatred for his heats, for having to lie there for days, tied down to the bedposts half-delirious and so uncomfortable he always thinks he might actually _die_ from it, the idea of Dean seeing him in such a state might be worse than just enduring it the way he always does. At least when Anna came in to administer food and water, he could remember doing the same for her, and the shame of it was lessened.

He leads the way back to his bedchamber, anxious and angry and vaguely wanting to crawl out of his skin, and when they get there, he’s more upset than afraid of the fact that he has no idea what to expect.

“So,” Dean starts, failing to follow him in. “So, you should just — um. Cold bath, I think, and — you know, it doesn’t seem too bad, yet, so I’ll just, uh, make myself scarce for a few days.”

Cas frowns at him, irritated by his awkward stumbling.

“What?”

“Just — don’t tell anybody you’re in heat until you absolutely have to, okay?”

Cas stares.

“Who would I tell?”

Dean’s shoulders lift, arms spreading.

“Dude, I don’t know! Kate? I mean, if you have to, uh, ask for stuff, obviously — but try to wait, okay? I need time to get away.”

Cas’s head is starting to hurt.

“Get away,” he repeats, tired and itchy. He can’t seem to stop shifting, and neither can Dean, and the way Dean keeps swallowing, throat bobbing as he does so, is incredibly distracting. “Get away where?”

He gets a helpless look in return.

“I don’t know yet, but I can’t stay _here._ As soon as the council finds out you’re in heat, they’ll make me — you know!”

It takes Cas a moment to understand.

“Aren’t you going to?”

“What? No!”

“But—"

“Look, I know I can be kind of an ass—"

“ _Kind of—"_ Cas starts, remembering a shattered pie dish and two weeks of wasted effort, and Dean winces.

“Hey, let’s, uh, let’s not get into that right now,” he says quickly, then shuffles backward a little.

Cas is startled to realize he’s moved forward.

“Right,” Dean says, taking a deep breath — and then flinching. “Yeah, no, I should — I should go. I’ll, uh. I’ll see you in a few days, I guess. Have fun.”

Almost immediately, his cheeks redden.

“Or, uh, I mean — you know what I mean.”

Cas doesn’t.

A heat is not fun. A heat is never fun. A heat is a test of his attachment to life, and more than once, he’s come close to failing it.

And the one thing in the world that, according to word of mouth, could make it _not quite as bad_ thinks it needs to take a “few-days” long trip at the most inconvenient moment ever.

“Where are you going?” he asks, undeniably plaintive, and Dean inches back a little more.

“Hunting trip, maybe? Visit my cousin? Inspect a granary in a neighboring town?” His voice seems to get higher as he speaks, and Cas just stares at him for a long moment.

Then:

“ _Why_?”

Dean gulps.

“I’ll see you next week,” he says quickly.

And then he literally starts running down the hall.

After a period of disproportionate rage and deep resentment, Cas has to admit he _does_ feel a little better after Dean leaves. His heat feels . . . less _close,_ and after a cool bath and some lying down in his comfortable bed, Cas feels almost normal again.

It’s one of the rare nights Kate is still working, and when she brings him a cup of tea before bed, she freezes a few feet into the room.

She looks at him, and Cas looks back.

Then she smiles, bright.

“Okay. Here’s your tea. I’ll just leave it on the table and see you in the morning—"

“Why is Dean going away?”

Kate’s pleasant expression melts into relief.

“Oh, thank God, I thought I was going to have to lie to Dean _and_ the council, and they’re a lot meaner than he is. You already talked about it?”

Cas frowns.

“ _He_ talked,” he clarifies, then mutters, “As he tends to do.”

She gives him a weird look.

“Did you . . . _not_ want him gone?”

He shrugs.

“I heard it wasn’t as bad, with someone.”

“Oh. Um. I guess, _technically,_ that’s true, but — given how things are, I’m not sure it would be a good idea.”

“How is ‘less bad’ not a good idea?” he asks bluntly, and maybe he is still cranky, after all.

He thinks he sees her lips quirk briefly, but he can’t be sure.

“Just . . . you guys have some things to work out.” Cas is about to ask, but she continues. “Are your heats really that bad?”

“Aren’t yours?” he asks, confused by the question, and she lifts her brows.

“Uh, no, not really? As long as you stay on top of it and drink enough water, it’s a _pain,_ yeah, but it’s fine.”

He squints.

“You’re blessed, then.”

“Oh. Sorry. I’d ask the doctor to send up something to help, but then I’d have to tell, and then . . .” she trails off, then perks up. “How soon will he be gone? One of the other maids is probably going tto tattle, and so long as he’s within five miles of the castle, they’ll make him come back.”

Cas sighs.

“He’s either leaving tonight or in the morning.”

She looks pleased.

“Great. I can definitely work with that.” She studies him then, sympathetic. “You gonna be okay until I can get you some stuff for tomorrow?”

“Of course.” Although if no one comes to restrain him by lunchtime, he can’t promise not to touch himself.

He’s not about to tell her that, though — you can’t get punished for it if you don’t get caught — and she shoots him a smile.

“Good man. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

He bids her good night and settles into the blankets, resigning himself to his fate.

Cas sleeps late, and is very surprised the next morning when all Kate does is bring him breakfast and a small cloth sack.

“Should I expect someone soon?” he asks, and Kate’s brows shoot up.

“Oh, jeez, no, the council would have a fit. They already sent someone after Dean — sorry, Emily beat me here — but he didn’t tell anyone where he was going.”

Cas doesn’t understand at all, but decides not to question it.

“Anyway, no one’ll bother you, I promise,” she assures him, giving his ankle a squeeze over the blanket. “Just ring if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

Cas unpacks the bag after he eats, disturbed to find a selection of round wooden dowels of some kind, in varying sizes. There’s a perfectly smooth lacquer over them, but he searches the bag for some kind of carving knife, anyway, wondering if this is how the rest of Winchester handles heats for unmated omegas. Maybe they trust him to distract his hands with whittling instead of tying them to the posts?

At any rate, there’s no knife, Cas’s woodcarving skills are limited, at best, and right now he’s too _uncomfortable_ to keep trying to solve the mystery the dowels present. He sets them aside, locks the door — even if multiple people have a key, it should give him time to compose himself and pretend he wasn’t doing anything he shouldn’t — and crawls back into bed to flagrantly defy church teachings of modesty.

Surprisingly, he does so undisturbed.

In fact, all day long, despite carefully keeping alert whenever it becomes too much to handle and he can’t help but act, he _remains_ undisturbed.

Someone comes to change his sheets before bed, utterly unconcerned by the state of them, because apparently, they’re even more brazen in the capital than New Eden ever knew.

Cas is hard-pressed to think it’s a problem.

Dean waits five days, just to be safe, and the instant he rides through the gate, he gets sent to the councilroom.

There’s a lot of shouting. Dean plays dumb, like he’d been planning that fishing trip with Jo and Benny for _ages,_ and he’s not sure how to feel about the fact that most of them seem to believe it.

It doesn’t change how pissed they are.

“You are _twenty-five years old,_ ” George insists. “You need to secure the line.”

“And I _will,_ but I’m not a wizard. I can’t _know_ when he’s gonna have a heat, and I can’t sit around doing nothing while I wait for it to happen.”

Dean’s never been a fan of sitting around doing nothing while he waits for something to happen, hence his behavior since Cas got here.

He’s definitely not visiting Cas _like that_ until he’s _positive_ Cas isn’t going to try and kill them.

Although — actually — in some ways Dean feels even _weirder_ about visiting him if it turns out he’s not an assassin, but he decides to worry about that later.

There’s some more shouting — though Dean’s pretty sure Bobby’s just reading something in his lap while everyone around him argues — and then Tara stands, commanding the room to silence.

“The Harvest Moon is next week,” she announces, bizarrely off-topic, especially for her. “He’ll need to appear at the festival.”

“Yes, but in the interim, we need to address the issue of—" George starts, but Christian nudges him.

“The Harvest Moon,” he drawls. “Forgot that was comin’ up.”

Dean doesn’t like the way he’s smirking, not one bit, or the way George’s confusion is beginning to give way to understanding.

“Okay?”

“Oh. Oh, yes. An excellent night to conceive,” George agrees, relaxing a little, and Dean pretty much chokes on air.

“To _what_?”

“Don’t you know, Deano? They say if you take your bride to bed on the night of the Harvest Moon, the heavens bless you with a gift nine months later.” Christian snickers. “Though he’s not exactly a bride.”

“That’s just — superstition,” Dean protests.

Tara narrows her eyes.

“Census reports suggest it’s more than superstition, Dean.”

He snorts.

“That’s because everybody hears about it and then _does it._ ”

Tara’s unimpressed.

“As you should be doing.”

He’s about to argue, and then his brain does him a favor for once, and he realizes.

As long as nobody follows him into Cas’s bedchamber, they have no idea what actually happens in it, do they?

“Yeah, alright. I’ll take him for a carriage ride, do a little moonlight kissing. Happy?”

She studies him for a moment, then nods.

“Yes. You’re dismissed.”

Dean grimaces. A lot of people objected, at first, when his Dad made a female alpha the head of the council, and Dean thought it was stupid.

He’s learned since then that there are plenty of reasons to object to Tara, and neither of her genders are one of them.

Dean skulks out of the room without another word.

It takes him a few minutes to work up the nerve to knock on Cas’s door, but eventually he manages.

“Cas? You, uh. You doin’ okay in there?”

There’s a long silence, and then:

“Come in, Dean.”

Dean can definitely tell what happened in this room over the last few days, but he ignores it, electing to focus on Cas, who’s perched in an armchair by the window and reading.

He looks . . . remarkably relaxed. More so than Dean’s probably ever seen him.

“So . . . I take it we’re, uh, all clear?”

After a moment, Cas tucks a bookmark in the book and sets it aside, turning to face him.

“Did you enjoy your trip?”

“Yeah,” Dean lies. Sitting on a dock not thinking about Cas back here at the castle, the hours dragging on while he waited for something to bite, was even less enjoyable than he expected. “It was good. And . . . stuff was okay here?”

Cas nods slowly, and Dean can’t help but squirm under his scrutiny.

He can’t help but remember the _last_ time Cas looked at him, like he was going to drag him to the bed and strip him down and have his wicked way with him.

Which, of course, was just the heat talking, but _still._ Dean’s only human.

“It was fine.” He tilts his head, something calculating in his gaze. “I was . . . left to my own devices. Is that normal, for Lawrence?”

Dean blinks. He has no idea what the hell Cas was asking.

“Uh. I don’t know what you mean, but yeah, whatever happened was normal. For an unmated omega, at least.”

“And a mated one?”

“Usually has their mate?”

Cas considers this.

“Oh.” He looks thoughtful. “Is that why you refused to share it?”

“What?”

“But Dean,” he continues, disturbed. “If you don’t share my cycle, won’t everything take much longer?”

Dean freezes.

_This,_ he understands.

“Oh. Uh. Well. Well, that’s — ha, you know, it’s — I mean, yeah, but — but for right now, I just think — uh. You know.”

Cas squints.

“No. I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”

Dean huffs, averting his gaze.

“I’m just — I’m not _ready,_ okay? Let it go.”

There’s no response for a moment, and then he hears Cas take a deep breath.

“Ah. I see. I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he adds gently.

When Dean risks a glance back up, Cas is studying him with something akin to wonder, like Dean has suddenly become a whole new person.

It’s weird as hell, and if he wasn’t uncomfortable before, he sure as hell is now.

“Anyway,” Dean continues hastily, hoping it stops. “I’m glad you’re, uh, doing alright. Thing is, next week, there’s a festival for the Harvest Moon, and you kinda gotta make an appearance.”

Cas looks surprised, if a little wary.

“Again?”

“Yeah. At events. Just — just so people can see you.”

_Like a trophy,_ he doesn’t say, though judging by the way Cas’s lip curls, Dean’s pretty sure he gets it.

“Well, I promise to wear pants this time.” He nods to himself. “Alright. Thank you for the warning.”

“The festival’s pretty cool,” Dean tries. “I — technically, you’re not supposed to go around, and stuff, but I’ll be with you and we can maybe dodge the council—"

“It’s fine, Dean. I don’t know that I want to ‘go around.’ I was hardly well-received, last time.”

Dean winces.

“Yeah. Yeah, but — that was — it’s pretty fun, I swear, and if you don’t like it, we can leave.”

Cas considers him for a long, unnerving moment.

“You want me to go.”

“Uh. Well, you _have_ to go, but since you’re going — yeah, I want you to enjoy yourself.”

Even if Cas _is_ trying to kill him, he deserves a night out, once in a while.

(It has nothing to do with Dean’s residual guilt over The Drive, which he maintains he shouldn’t feel that guilty about in the first place.)

Cas shrugs.

“I’ll try.” They’re quiet a moment, and then Cas lifts his brows. “Is that all?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Dean glances at the clock. “Actually, it’s getting kind of late. You feel like some lunch?”

Cas studies him, unreadable, and then nods.

“I’ll send for some.”

So they sit and wait and Cas reads some more of his book and then lunch gets there, over which Dean talks about fish and Benny’s family and Jo’s swamp monster prank, which leads to Cas describing to him a variety of water-based monsters he read about in one of the books Charlie gave him, and it’s probably the longest running conversation they’ve ever had.

It’s only when Dean reluctantly says goodbye, knowing he should probably go drop in for afternoon training, that it hits him.

He kind of missed Cas, while he was gone.

Dean is a baffling combination of amiable and quiet all week, but despite that — and despite Cas’s newfound understanding of what Kate meant by ‘staying on top of it’ — Cas finds himself glad to have him returned.

He’s not surprised, though. Sam and Charlie still visit him — unfortunately attempted to do so while Cas was otherwise occupied, which lead to a somewhat awkward moment — but their visits always feel too short, and aren’t as frequent as he’d like.

And Dean — when Dean isn’t being an ass, he’s not the worst company. Especially now that Cas thinks he’s beginning to understand _why_ Dean is sometimes an ass.

“Dean,” Cas starts, when Charlie and Sam stop by after dinner. “Is he . . . inexperienced?”

The pair freeze simultaneously, gaping at him.

Cas tries not to be amused.

“Um.” Sam smiles, uncomfortable. “Inexperienced in . . . what?”

Cas shifts, threading his fingers together in his lap.

“Intimacy.”

Charlie makes a wheezing sound, and Cas nudges the teapot toward her, concerned.

“Oh, intimacy,” she says, nodding. “ _Intimacy._ Right. That. Yeeeah, uh. Dean’s . . . fine.”

Sam just stares at the table top, perturbed.

Charlie clears her throat.

“Why, um, why do you ask, Cas?”

“I think . . .” Cas hesitates. “I think I may have been insensitive.”

“Insensitive?” Sam repeats, a little nervously.

Cas nods.

“To be honest, I’ve been wondering why Dean thought I was trying to kill him.” Cas has, in fact, lost sleep over it, and it’s only since Dean arrived home and spoke with him that he thinks he may have finally found the missing piece. “It seemed farfetched.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” she mutters, and he nods.

“But the other day, he said—" Cas cuts off, suddenly wondering if he’s being _more_ inconsiderate, discussing this with those Dean is close to.

But how else will he know how to proceed?

“I had the impression he _wasn’t_. Experienced. That our eventual . . . duty, was distressing to him.”

Sam and Charlie exchange glances.

“Okay. That — that part’s certainly true,” Sam agrees cautiously. “Um, as far as the experience goes, though, I don’t, um, I don’t think that’s exactly it.”

Cas nods, intent.

“You don’t know, though. I assumed, as I’m sure you have, that given how handsome he is, and the pleasantness of his scent—" Charlie abruptly coughs into her arm “—especially combined with his status, this wouldn’t be an issue, but — it seems I may have been wrong.”

Dean has been an ass, and Cas maintains there’s no _excuse_ for it — but he thinks he may, at last, understand the reason.

“I was apprehensive about the matter, coming here,” Cas admits. “I failed to consider that he may have been, as well. And I think — I think Dean may have projected the threat I presented onto something more easily expressed.”

There’s a heavy silence.

“So . . .” Charlie starts, squinting. “You think Dean thought you were trying to kill him — that he’s been such a dick to you this whole time — because he’s afraid of being _intimate_ with you?”

Cas nods.

“I had many fears, coming here. I can’t claim to have handled them all well.” He frowns. “In my distraction, I may have exacerbated his own.”

They look at each other again, and then Charlie turns to him, clapping her hands together.

“That’s — actually, that’s really considerate of you, but I don’t think—"

“Maybe you should talk to him about it,” Sam interrupts suddenly, leaning forward with earnest eyes.

Although, Sam’s eyes seem more earnest, by nature, than not.

“Talk to him?”

“Yeah. Ask him why he doesn’t want to be intimate with you. And — tell him it’s okay.”

Cas blinks.

“Oh. Yes. Actually — actually, I was very reassured, when Dean told me he had no plans for that, when I first arrived.” He nods to himself. He’s not sure it falls to him to make amends — again, Cas thinks of his pie, in pieces on the floor — but now that he knows, there’s nothing to lose by being kinder in the future. “I’ll do that, Sam.”

Charlie gives Sam a strangely helpless look.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Sam shrugs, though there’s a determined glint to his eye.

“Yeah. Talking’s important. Especially for _Dean._ ”

“If you can _get_ him to talk—"

“It should be fine. It can’t _hurt._ ”

Charlie sighs.

“If you say so.”

For Cas’s part, he’s inclined to agree with Sam.

He and Dean talk more, lately.

He thinks it’s a very good thing, indeed.

Still, Cas isn’t completely oblivious, and he knows without having to test it that this will be a difficult conversation to have. Dean seems to struggle the most, stumbling over his words and growing flustered, when forced to express any kind of personal thought or feeling to Cas, and this would be both.

He decides, then, that it’s better to wait until after the Festival. Dean strongly indicated it would be fun. If that’s true, he thinks Dean may be more receptive to a difficult conversation, afterward.

And if it’s not, he thinks he, himself, will have less strength to tolerate the event if that difficult conversation has just gone poorly.

So Cas dons his nice blue three-piece set and Dean comes to fetch him at five o’ clock, mumbling something that sounds vaguely like a compliment (though Cas can’t be sure), and they make their way down to the courtyard, where a different phaeton than last time is waiting.

Dean spends the short ride to the city center describing the springs, wheels, and potential speed of the vehicle in excessive detail, but Cas mostly just appreciates the distraction from all the colorfully dressed crowds they soar past.

“So, the festival begins with a ceremony. We’re gonna sit on a stage with my dad and some of the council people, and he’ll say some shit about our success in the last year and his confidence in our future prosperity and when he’s done, everyone’s going to get drunk and wander around all the festival stalls. Sound good?”

Cas offers a hesitant nod.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Dean smiles.

“You and me? We sit still and look pretty, and then we sneak off to play.”

Cas reluctantly smiles back.

“Alright. Then it sounds good.”

The smile turns to a grin, and Cas is so taken aback by his reaction to it that he doesn’t say a word when Dean insists on helping him out of the phaeton.

And then Dean fails to let go of his hand on the way to the stage, and Cas attributes his continued speechlessness to his fear of the extensive crowds.

Anyway, they settle into their seats, waiting for everyone to finish gathering and the King to arrive, which doesn’t happen until the sun is showing signs of setting, a good forty minutes later. Dean proves correct; the speech is very boring, and Cas discreetly examines the people in the crowd, fairly confident no one is paying any attention to him, this time. The people of Lawrence are a fascinating blend, especially decked out in their vibrant festival gear. Cas certainly never saw anything like them in New Eden.

Eventually, King John dismisses them to their pleasure, and everything gets much _louder,_ after that, the crowds of people abruptly moving in all directions, conversation and laughter and _song_ carrying through the air.

Dean shoots him a mischievous smile and jerks his head toward the exit to the stage.

Cas doesn’t hesitate to follow him off it.

“So — they ever do anything like this in New Eden?” Dean asks, slinging an arm over his shoulder, presumably to keep him in conversation range.

Cas shakes his head, suddenly feeling too warm.

“No. We’re a town, not a city, and even if we were — the council would never condone this kind of revelry.”

Dean snorts.

“How do you manage to make ‘revelry’ sound like a dirty word, Cas?”

Cas shrugs, jostling the arm behind his neck. It quickly resettles.

“It might as well be, there.”

“Huh.” Dean looks thoughtful. “What, uh. What _is_ it like, there? You’ve heard all about Lawrence — kinda seen it — but you don’t really talk about your home.”

“I don’t care to,” Cas answers honestly, and Dean is quiet for several minutes.

“What about apple-bobbing? Ever done that?”

“No? What is it?”

Dean promptly explains, guiding him to join the crowd of onlookers, and if Cas thought it _sounded_ stupid, it definitely looks even more so.

“I’d rather not.”

“What? Dude, come on, you’ve gotta try it.”

“Are _you_ going to do it?”

“Nah, it’s a pain.”

“ _Dean._ ”

“Fine, if _I_ do it, will _you_?”

Cas squints.

“How does us both doing something you think is a ‘pain’ make it better? Shouldn’t we both just _not_?”

Dean huffs.

“Just — just do it, Cas. It’s a festival. This is how you enjoy yourself, by doing random stupid shit that isn’t actually all that fun.”

Cas opens his mouth to object — or rather, helpfully point out the logical fallacy — but then the apparent overseer of the game spots them.

“Your highness! I haven’t seen you play in years.”

Dean grins back at him, nudging Cas’s shoulder.

“He’s never played.”

The woman claps a hand to her chest.

“Never say so! Knew they were odd ones, up there in that town. Well, come on, dear, let’s see your teeth.”

Cas throws Dean an alarmed look, but Dean just laughs.

“You don’t have to show her your teeth. But you better not lose on purpose, okay?”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m betting three crowns on your victory.”

There’s a chorus of oohs, and Cas scowls.

“Why would you bet on someone who’s _never played_ before?”

“Because I can? Besides, if I don’t, you won’t try.”

“You have plenty of money. Three crowns is nothing to you.”

“Then let me waste ‘em. Stop stalling, buddy, there’s other stuff I wanna show you.”

Reluctant, Cas steps forward, positioning himself in front of a barrel and eyeing the floating green apples with grim determination. It _is_ three crowns, after all, whether Dean cares about them or not.

Of course, he loses.

Dean places another bet.

Cas loses that time, too.

And then, on the third try, by sheer luck, Cas’s teeth catch in just the right place and sink in on his first try.

He straightens, triumphant despite the water and apple juices dripping down his chin.

Dean looks at him for a long moment, eyes bright, and then he starts laughing.

“Son of a bitch, Cas, I didn’t think you could actually do it.”

On reckless impulse, Cas throws the apple at his chest.

_That,_ at least, he manages on the first try.

Dean refuses to collect from the third-time losers of the bet — “They’re basically just giving my money back to me,” he points out, and Cas quietly notes his generosity anyway — and quickly pulls him along to their next destination, a vendor of fried cakes.

Cas is trying to figure out how to eat it from a stick when there’s a familiar flash of red in his peripheral, and then Charlie and Sam are crowding in on them, beaming.

“Hi, Cas!”

“Charlie,” Cas greets her, hastily swallowing his frustratingly small bite of cake. “Hello. And Sam.”

Dean’s head whips toward him.

“What? How’d you know that was Sam?”

There’s a very loud silence, at that.

Cas clears his throat.

“He’s the tallest man I’ve seen tonight.” He hesitates. “And he smiles like you do.”

Somehow, the silence is even worse this time, a shocked sort of undercurrent to it.

Cas resolutely examines his fried cake.

“Oh,” Dean says eventually. “Well, uh. Good eye. Sam, this is Cas. Cas, Sam.”

“Nice to meet you, Cas!” Sam exclaims, a little too brightly. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Cas nods slowly.

“Likewise.”

Dean looks satisfied, at any rate, and nudges Cas’s shoulder.

“Bet you’re excited to see Charlie, huh?” Dean glances over at her. “Used to ask about you a lot.”

“Did he?” Charlie asks, smiling. “Well, here I am! I’m sure glad to have a chance to see you again.”

She winks, and Cas tries not to smile too wide in return.

“As am I. What are the two of you doing?”

Charlie shrugs.

“’Bout to kick Sam’s butt in a shooting game.”

Dean shudders.

“Don’t let Jo hear you say the words ‘shooting game’. We’ll end up playing till dawn, and then we’ll all end up in a drunken fistfight by breakfast.”

Jo sounds like a very unusual girl, from everything Cas has heard.

Charlie waves him off.

“Don’t worry about her. She’s in a card game right now.”

Dean snorts.

“Alright. Well, Cas and I’ll catch up with you guys later—"

“Why don’t you come with?” she interrupts. “See how his aim is.”

Dean gives her a frustrated look, but she just raises her eyebrows.

“It’s not like the bullets are _real,_ ” she mocks, and he turns red.

“That wasn’t what I—"

“Then come _on,_ you big baby. Let’s go.”

Cas thinks Dean might be pouting, but the prospect of spending a little time with Sam and Charlie outside his room is too appealing to heed it.

Still — he reaches back and squeezes Dean’s shoulder, offering him a small smile.

Dean narrows his eyes.

“Fine,” he mumbles. “But if anyone’s kicking Sam’s butt, it’s gonna be me.”

Charlie beats all three of them, unequivocally. Dean insists they move to the knife-throwing stall next door, where he can show his true talents.

Cas is surprised to learn he has some talents of his own, and not even Dean’s wide-eyed, bloodless face makes him feel anything less than pleased about it.

Sadly, Cas’s skills seem to all be stacked in the knife-throwing category, and he loses the next string of games.

But then they come upon a wood-chopping competition, technically forbidden to omegas, but once Charlie makes Cas take off his jacket and flex — he feels _ridiculous —_ the surrounding crowd convinces the overseer to let him participate.

He wins, his audience watching slack-jawed as he moves through the massive stack of wood. Cas himself is not surprised, having spent a significant portion of his life chopping wood, and he selects a silver filigree brooch for his prize and proudly presents it to Charlie, who lets out a delighted squeak and practically smothers him in a hug.

Once again, he thinks he sees Dean pout a little, but then he’s smiling again, albeit reluctantly, and Cas feels about a hundred stories tall.

The sun has disappeared entirely, at this point, but the festival lights are so bright Cas hadn’t even noticed. They all agree to take a break, then, and in their search for refreshment, they run into someone Dean knows.

“Having fun?” the blonde woman asks, surveying them all.

There’s something hard, _cunning_ about her gaze, and Cas instinctively edges a little in front of Sam and Charlie, watching her warily.

“Yeah, Tara, thanks for asking. How ‘bout you?”

Dean’s smile is as insincere as Cas has ever seen it. It reminds him of darker times, tense evenings spent in the garden, Dean snapping at him with layered, nonsensical remarks.

“I am, actually. You can’t beat festival liquor.” She smiles wryly, offering Dean a cup. “Try some? It’s one of Lady Ellen’s.”

Dean relaxes a little.

“Oh. Sure.” He takes a sip, lips turning up at the corners. “Yeah, alright. Think the rest of these assholes need some.”

She nods, stepping aside with a small smile.

It should make her look nicer, but it doesn’t.

“Enjoy yourselves.”

Dean lifts his hand.

“Yeah, thanks. You, too.”

She disappears into the crowd, and Dean leads them down another street, sipping at his cup.

“Want some?” he asks Cas, and Cas shakes his head.

“I don’t enjoy ale.”

“Fair.”

He’s finished it by the time they reach the large, brightly lit stall, and with Sam and Charlie, spends several minutes talking to a pretty, shrewd-eyed brunette behind it. Her style is simple, but conspicuously fine, especially compared to the rest of the stall operators, and Cas deduces this is the Lady Ellen Harvelle he’s often heard about.

“Can I get you something, hon?” she asks him, eyes softening when they land on him, though they retain a peculiar twinkle.

“I don’t like ale.”

She cocks her head.

“You sure you haven’t had the right ale?”

“I suppose not.”

“Hey, don’t make him drink if he doesn’t want to,” Dean interjects, and Cas frowns at him.

“ _You_ made me bob for apples,” he accuses, and Dean looks taken aback.

“What? That’s totally different.”

“How is it—"

Ellen thrusts a cup under his nose, brows lifted meaningfully.

“Try this.”

After a beat of hesitation, he accepts it, then lifts it to his lips, taking a tentative sip.

Then he takes a very large gulp; it’s _delicious,_ sweet and tart and as wonderful as coffee in an entirely different way.

“You like it?” she asks, amused. He nods, cup still tilted against his mouth.

Dean gives him a worried look.

“What’d you give him?” he demands, and she arches a brow.

“Grape juice.”

Dean looks startled. Then he bursts out laughing.

Cas ignores him.

Still, Dean gets him another cup before they leave, so he can’t have meant it _that_ unkindly.

Anyway, Cas sips his juice, trailing after the other three and quietly taking in the lively festival atmosphere, and he can’t help himself.

He hopes, someday, he has another night just like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Implied/referenced past abuse: Cas reflects on spending his heats in New Eden tied to the bedposts, the intent being to prevent him from masturbating/alleviating his heat. His sister received the same treatment, and they were both left like this during their heats, with someone only coming in to administer food and water.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: non-consensual drug use (the spiked drink), **dubious consent** (scene will be marked with *** at the beginning and end, full details in the notes if you want to skip it/are simply worried), references to forced separation of parent and child (Cas and his future children), references to past abuse (Cas’s back, details about that are in the story end notes), please let me know if I missed anything.

By the time they’ve circled back to Ellen’s stall for another round of ale (and juice), Dean’s starting to feel a little strange.

And while he’s actually kind of been feeling funny all evening, watching Cas bob for apples and throw knives and hack away at wood like some kind of superhuman being, full of smug looks and small smiles and surprised laughter along the way-

This is different. The other stuff has had him feeling warm and light and carefree in a way he hasn’t for a long time (on account of the whole imprisoning an innocent followed by fearing for his life stuff), a weird, fluttery sensation in his stomach, like when you can’t help but be excited for something even though you have to wait for it.

Now, though, the good feelings are shifting, becoming uncomfortable. The excitement is turning to something anxious and unsettled, and even though the sun’s been down for an hour, Dean’s begun to feel flushed and overwarm among the crowd, and not in a good way.

He figures his stomach must have just been too empty for two cups of ale, though normally, that wouldn’t be a problem for him.

Anyway, he tries to ignore it — it’s been a good night, a _great_ night, even, and he’s not ready to call it yet, especially since he can’t exactly just take Cas out with them any time he feels like it — but by eleven o’ clock, he’s starting to struggle.

It doesn’t help that Cas takes notice, hovering close and eyeing him with open concern — especially after someone accidentally jostles Dean’s shoulder and Dean actually _growls_ at them.

“Are you . . . feeling alright?” Cas asks after Dean’s hastily apologized, and Dean shakes his head.

“Uh. No, actually, I — I feel kind of weird. Not great.”

Cas nods, looking a little disappointed.

“Alright. Is it time to leave?”

“No, no, I think — I just need a minute, maybe get some water.”

Cas accepts this, and once Dean has his cup of water, he directs Cas to a portraiture stand and instructs the man to sketch him, paying him extra for color. Maybe if they take a break from the games for a while, whatever’s going on with him can settle.

Besides — Dean kind of likes the idea of having a portrait of Cas, even if it’s just a quick sketch from a street artist.

Cas sits awkwardly on the stool, hands clasped tight together, and although Dean’s head hurts and he’s struggling to sit still himself, he can’t help but smile.

“Relax, Cas. You look like he’s making up a Wanted poster.”

“I’ve never sat for a portrait before,” Cas mumbles, though his shoulders loosen a little. “What if it looks bad?”

“Then we’ll burn it.” Dean smirks a little. “Of course, if it looks _funny,_ we’ll circulate copies—"

“No, we won’t,” Sam interrupts, shooting him a dirty look. “It’ll be fine, Cas. You look great.”

Sam’s just being nice, and logically, Dean _knows_ that — but for some reason, he bristles.

“Hey,” he snaps, and Sam looks startled.

“What?”

Dean bites back the impulse to tell him to stop _flirting,_ because Sam isn’t, and holy shit, what is _wrong_ with Dean?

“Nothing. Nothing, ‘m just — I don’t know, I — I feel weird.”

Sam frowns.

And then he leans in a little, sniffing.

“Dude, what the _hell_ —"

Sam recoils, brows shooting up.

“Dean, you smell like _rut._ ”

Dean blinks.

“What? No. No, that can’t — I’ve got almost two months to go.”

Sam hesitates, then sniffs again.

“Um. I don’t think you do. Actually, I’d say you have about an _hour_ before you get kind of—"

Dean curses.

“God damn it.” He casts a forlorn look at Cas. “I guess — _damn it,_ we should probably —"

“Charlie can get him back to his room,” Sam assures him, and Dean hesitates.

“I probably have time,” he argues. “Hell, I should have a few hours, still —"

“I really don’t think you do,” Sam says bluntly. “And even if you’re right — maybe it’s better? If you don’t?”

Dean is, to be honest, _struggling_ to understand how it would be better for him not to be the one to see Cas safe and sound back to his room, and it is exactly that difficulty which makes it clear he shouldn’t.

“Fine,” he mutters. “Charlie!”

Charlie, five feet away and flirting with a girl selling paper lanterns, whips her head around.

“Hm?”

“Need you to do me a favor.”

She gives the girl an apologetic smile before quickly striding back over, a warning look in her eyes.

“This better be—" she cuts off, abruptly wrinkling her nose. “Ew. By favor, please tell me you don’t mean—"

“Get Cas back to his room, alright?” he snaps. “I’ve gotta — I need to get out of here.”

She sobers, nodding.

“Of course.”

He sighs, rubbing his temples. The more minutes that pass, the more he recognizes where this is headed, although he still thinks there’s something weird about it. He’s not usually this _grouchy,_ and the headache certainly isn’t usual, not unless he gets dehydrated.

“Is everything alright?” Cas calls from his perch, and Dean straightens, turning back toward him with an uncomfortable smile.

God _damn,_ Cas looks good. He’s a little mussed from all their adventures, collar turned up funny from where Dean’s arm has been brushing against it, and his blue eyes are bright and content and it suddenly seems miserably unfair that Dean has to go back to his room _alone._

“Dean has a, um, an issue, that needs — he has to go. Right now.”

Dean licks his lips, watching the way Cas tilts his head, exposing just a little bit more of the long line of his throat -

Sam firmly tugs at his jacket.

“ _Right now,_ ” he repeats, then leans in and hisses, “You look like you’re going to _eat_ him, man. You need to get out of here.”

Reluctant — and honestly, a little angry — Dean scrabbles for the ends of reason and forces himself to step back.

“Yeah. I’ll — I’ll see you later, alright?”

Cas looks disappointed. Dean _knows_ it’s only because his fun night at the festival is over, but he can’t help but think—

“Alright. I hope your . . . issue is resolved.”

Dean swallows hard, nodding.

“Y-yeah. ‘Night, Cas.”

“Good night, Dean.”

Dean can’t help himself; he keeps staring, watching Cas’s eyes turn puzzled, then narrow, until finally Sam wraps a hand around his arm and starts pulling him backwards.

“Actually, I think I’ll go with him, just to make sure.”

“Probably for the best,” Charlie mutters, but things are starting to get a little hazy for Dean, and he can’t even muster a retort.

She’s right, anyway.

Sam half-guides, half-hauls him back toward the castle, and even though Dean resents it -

He doesn’t kid himself it’s not necessary.

“Sorry we couldn’t stay longer,” Charlie says, looking genuinely unhappy about it as she walks him back to his room. “Dean taking you around was one thing — I’m actually kinda surprised Tara didn’t call him on it — but if he’s not even there . . .”

Cas offers her a smile.

“I understand. Honestly, that was a lot more than I was expecting. I — I had a lot of fun. I’ve never done anything like that, before.”

“Yeah, don’t even get me _started_ on how unfair that is.” She sighs. “Anyway. Maybe we can do it again next year.”

Cas isn’t sure what to say to that.

He’s not sure he’ll _be_ here next year.

More than ever, he wishes he could just _stay._

“What was wrong with Dean?” he asks instead, and it’s a little disturbing how intently Charlie suddenly studies her shoes.

“Oh, just — you know. Stomach bug. Drank too much.”

Cas squints.

“He had _two_ ales.”

“They were big cups!”

“You and Sam have told me about times when he drank several _times_ that—"

“Right, but he’s probably already sick or something,” she says quickly. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s fine.”

Cas regards her doubtfully.

“If you say so.”

Charlie gives him a hug when it’s time to say goodbye, thanking him for her brooch.

“We’ll come see you soon, ‘kay?”

He smiles.

“I look forward to it.”

Once she’s gone, he changes into pajamas, although he doubts he’ll be able to sleep for a while. Despite Dean’s strange mood toward the end, Cas doesn’t think he’s ever had so much fun in his life. It’ll be a while before either his mind or his body calm down enough for sleep.

He is worried about Dean, though. Many alphas can’t handle their liquor, though things Sam and Charlie said make him doubt Dean is one of them. Still, Dean had begun to seem . . . odd, ever since he started on the ale. Certainly, by the time he left, he was flushed and strange, a look in his eye that was at once hungry and vacant.

Cas assumes he must have just been sick, but he still hopes Dean will feel better in the morning. It can probably be attributed to giddiness from the kind of night he wouldn’t have even known how to imagine before it actually happened, but Cas has a bizarre sense of anticipation for seeing Dean tomorrow, even though he just said goodbye. He — he had _fun,_ tonight. He had _so_ much fun, and Dean was part of that.

What’s more, Cas thinks _Dean_ had fun, and he thinks he, himself, was a part of that, too. It seems impossible and _good_ and Cas suspects it’s going to keep him up for hours, because it was wholly unexpected. And given Dean’s history, a part of him is afraid he’ll wake up in the morning and Dean will be throwing dishes of pie again, looking at him with cold eyes and scoffing at everything for reasons on which Cas cannot even begin to speculate.

So for now, he just curls up in bed, a spare pillow tucked comfortably in his fidgety arms, and doesn’t even bother trying to fall asleep.

It’s a good thing; he can’t have been lying down thirty minutes when there’s a knock on the door, and then it’s abruptly being pushed open.

He sits up, staring at Kate in confusion. She’s not wearing an apron, and she looks very nice — he expects she must have been at the festival — and his confusion grows when he sees the pair of guards in the hall.

“Is . . . is something wrong?”

It occurs to him, trying to think of why they’d come, that there may have been something _very_ wrong with Dean — that something may have happened to him.

“Is Dean alright?” he asks quickly, before she can answer, and she looks faintly taken aback before she presses her mouth together.

“Yes. For the most part. He’s . . .” she glances back toward the guards, unhappy. “He’s in rut.”

It takes Cas a moment to understand.

“Oh.”

Kate looks pained.

“It’s the council,” she says quietly, though there’s an unmistakable thread of anger in her tone. “One of them _checked on_ _him_ , wanting to know why he’d left early.”

Cas nods, sliding out of bed.

“I understand.”

She hesitates.

“It’s not — Dean isn’t the one sending for you. The council wants me to escort you there.”

He nods again. He gathered.

“It’s alright, Kate.”

The look he receives in return seems like a very vivid question of his sanity, but Cas ignores it, donning his dressing gown.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous, but in some ways, he feels far more calm than he had when Dean first collected him from New Eden.

Besides — he had a wonderful night. At this point in life, he’s learned that all good things come at a price, even if the two might not seem directly related.

He gestures for her to lead the way, and she looks at him for a second, eyes unreadable, before she nods and turns. Once he falls into step beside her, he can clearly scent her anger.

“Kate,” he says quietly. “Really. It’s alright.”

She casts him a sideways glance.

“It is _not._ I wish I could — I don’t know, hide you in my apron or something.”

Cas considers this.

“You don’t have an apron right now,” he points out, smiling at the image, and she scowls heavily.

“Don’t laugh. It makes me feel worse.”

He hesitates a few steps, and then reaches out and squeezes her shoulder.

“Well, don’t feel bad on my behalf. I had a very nice evening.” He tilts his head. “Actually, Dean and I are on better terms than we have been since I came here. The timing could be worse.”

If he’d been summoned after Dean had thrown the pie on the ground . . .

Well, he’d be suffering a great deal more apprehension, to say the least.

Kate’s shoulders tense.

“The timing,” she repeats evenly. “Funny thing, that.”

He lifts a brow, curious, and she shakes her head.

“Nothing. I could be wrong.”

She doesn’t sound like she thinks so, but Cas decides to ask her later, when her distress isn’t quite so palpable.

It’s strange; if anything, Kate’s worry and upset over the situation seems to lessen his own.

They walk in silence, climbing two flights of stairs, and then Kate is reaching out and squeezing his hand.

“It’s just around the corner. I know — look, Dean’s been an ass. That’s true, and I wouldn’t blame you if you were scared shitless of — all of this. But you don’t have to be afraid of _him,_ alright?”

Cas nods.

“I haven’t been afraid of Dean for a long time, Kate.”

She looks startled, disbelieving, and opens her mouth to speak.

Then she shuts it.

“Good,” she finally says. “That’s good, I guess.”

They come to a stop outside a door. Cas can pick up traces of Dean’s scent in this hallway, and right outside the door, it actually smells unusually nice — enough that it distracts him for several seconds as he tries to pick it apart, identify it.

When he remembers himself, Kate is looking at him, uncertainly horrified.

“I don’t know if that makes things more or less complicated,” she says, but before he can ask her what she means, a guard moves past them to push the door open.

Air rushes out, and Cas swallows. Dean’s scent is stronger in here, and he was correct in thinking it was different.

With the door open, it’s more than just _unusually nice._

Cas takes a step forward without thinking, and Kate seizes his arm.

“Wait — Cas —" she takes a deep breath, catching his eye. “I know he’s in rut, but he’s not an animal. If you have something you need to say — just talk to him.”

“Alright,” he agrees, unsure, and she frowns.

“Promise me.”

He’s not sure why she’s so worried, and whatever bizarre thing Dean’s scent has done is leaving him feeling very . . . off-kilter, but he is grateful that she seems so keen to look out for him.

“I promise,” he says firmly, though his gaze flicks to the inside of the room, where he can just make out a bedpost and half of a lump beneath a blanket.

She studies him, scent still sour with upset. It’s so at odds with Dean’s, and the combination is confusing; a part of him wishes she would hurry and go.

“Okay. Okay — I’ll try and check on you in the morning, if I can.”

“I appreciate it, Kate,” he says honestly. “Thank you.”

One of the guards clears their throat pointedly, and she grimaces.

“I’ll see you later, Cas.”

He nods.

And then he’s being waved into the room, the door firmly shut behind him.

There’s only a few candles in the room, but it’s far from being dark, and Cas tries to ignore the strength of scent in here. It’s almost overpowering _,_ and Cas must be more nervous than he thought, because his pulse is suddenly quickening and his skin seems to tingle, a tight, restless feeling building beneath it.

“Dean?” he calls out, studying the strange lump in the middle of the bed. It shudders.

“Cas, go away.”

He frowns.

“Uh. I’m not sure I can.” It feels incredibly awkward to think of the guards waiting outside, but for all he knows, they’ll be there all night.

Dean grunts.

“I’m not kidding, Cas, get out.”

Cas hesitates, then draws a little closer, fingertips lightly resting on the foot of the bed.

“They told me you were in rut.”

“Obviously,” Dean snorts, a little muffled. “Not that _they_ needed to be told.”

Cas isn’t sure what he means by that, so he tentatively takes a seat on the edge.

“If you’re in rut — don’t you need me here?”

“Nope,” is the instantaneous reply. “So _go away._ ”

Dean is in rut, must be struggling to maintain his composure, and yet he’s insistent that Cas not help him.

Cas is confident, then, that his theory was correct.

“I don’t know, either,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. He shifts closer, for no particular reason. “It’s alright to be — to be nervous. But this is an eventuality, Dean. It’s what I’m here for. I have . . . I have adjusted to the idea, and it’s time you do, as well.”

The cover gets flung off, and Dean sits up, flushed and disheveled, sleep shirt askew and half its buttons undone.

Cas stares. He knows it’s rude, but he can’t help himself. It’s really not _that_ different from his own chest, and thus should not be in any way compelling, and yet -

“Good for you,” Dean says, and Cas desperately tries to refocus on the conversation. “But I _haven’t ‘_ adjusted,’ whatever the hell that means, so you need to go.”

Cas licks his lips, fingers curling against the blanket.

“It’s okay, Dean. It’s — this is normal.”

Dean grimaces.

“Dude, _nothing_ about this is normal.”

Cas ignores him.

“You’re in rut. You were supposed to have been trying to get me with child for months, now. I understand your fears, Dean, but if it proves distasteful for you, then it’s better to take advantage of a cycle so it’s done as little as possible.”

Dean’s mouth falls open a little.

“How can you — come _on,_ man, you’ve gotta _hate_ this, how can you talk about it like it’s —" He cuts off, and Cas scoots in a little more, the better to face him.

“What?”

Dean throws his arms out.

“Like you don’t wanna eat your fucking vegetables so you might as well down a puree!”

Cas thinks about it, briefly distracted.

“Actually, that does seem practica—"

“ _Dude._ ”

“Dean,” he counters. “This — whether you do it now or in two years, it _will_ happen. It must. That your council felt the need to ensure I came — I don’t think you have two years.”

Dean gives him a helpless look.

“I know. I know all that — Cas, I’m pretty sure Tara put something in my drink, because there was _no way_ anybody should have cared whether I left early, and she should have had something to say about you walking around with me, but she just — my rut shouldn’t be for _weeks,_ at least. And here it is.”

Cas feels sorry for Dean; he knows some things about ruthless councils.

Still — ultimately, Cas had to obey his, and Dean must do the same.

“Then you know what you have to do.”

Dean shakes his head.

“No, that’s not — Cas, aren’t you _pissed_?”

“No,” he says honestly. “I’m not angry.”

He’s afraid, of what happens next, and of having to leave the castle — having to leave the people in it — but he ran out of energy for anger a long time ago.

Besides, he wasn’t lying to Kate. Cas isn’t afraid of Dean, himself, even when it comes to this, and that — right now, that feels like the most important thing.

Right now, that’s giving him the courage to do what must be done.

He reaches for Dean’s hand, hoping to offer him some of the same courage.

“I know this isn’t what you want. And I know that you thought I was trying to kill you.” Cas pauses, and Dean stares at the hand covering his own, letting out a rough, hysterical sounding laugh. “But you don’t need to be afraid of this, Dean. I will not hurt you.”

Dean just looks at him.

“Yeah? And what about you?”

Cas blinks.

“I trust you,” he says. It’s a little _reckless_ , perhaps, but not untrue. Maybe he doesn’t trust that Dean won’t be cold to him again in the morning, or that Dean will keep taking him riding and letting him spend so much time in the garden, when it requires so much of his own time — but he thinks he understands Dean a little better, now; and past not fearing him, he doesn’t believe Dean takes any particular pleasure from his suffering, despite some of his actions.

Perhaps he won’t make it a priority to _spare_ Cas that suffering, but it will never be a factor in his intentions.

Unexpectedly, Dean looks horrified.

“ _What_ ?” he chokes out. “Cas, you — don’t — why the _hell_ would you trust me?”

Cas shrugs, casually bringing his knee up on the bed, to make himself more comfortable.

“Much of the time, you’re an ass,” he says, and Dean nods vigorously, brows raised as if to say, _you see?_ “But you’ve shown me more consideration than I’ve been given in the rest of my life. Certainly, more than I expected from you. I think you’re a foolish man, if you believed I was trying to kill you, but I see now that you had your own insecurities, and whether the notion was ridiculous or not, I’m sure it was very unsettling for you.”

Dean’s expression hardens.

“Yeah? And what if I told you I still wasn’t sure?”

It’s a surprise, given Dean’s amiability the last week, but Dean suspected some elaborate plot of deceit, so it’s less of a surprise that he needs a little time to lay all those fears to rest.

Cas lifts his chin, holding Dean’s gaze.

“Then I’d know you must be very afraid, indeed, right now. And I’d be sorry.” He tilts his head. “And I’d try to reassure you that it will be okay.”

Dean stares back for a moment, brow furrowed, and then he looks down, swallowing hard.

“Cas,” he mumbles. “Do you really know what you’re doing here? Because you — you’re holding my hand and staring into my eyes and telling me it’s _okay_ and you keep getting _closer_ and it’s driving me _crazy_ and this isn’t — if you don’t go, you know what’s gonna happen, right?”

“I’m not a child, Dean.” He’s also actually not sure _what,_ exactly, is going to happen, but he’s made his peace with it. “If I say it’s ‘okay,’ I expect you to listen.”

Dean studies him, searching, and then—

He abruptly leans forward and presses his mouth to Cas’s.

***

Cas, for his part, is not expecting it. He’s not sure _what_ he expected to happen — he had a vague idea, assuming humans were similar to other animals — but at no time did he think to factor in _kissing._

Where Cas comes from, kissing is for mates, or for parents and children, of which he and Dean are neither. What’s more, kisses are brief, chaste exchanges, regardless of the kind; greetings and goodbyes and fleeting expressions of affection.

There are, of course, the rather scandalous kisses in _novels,_ the kind he now understands the church was hinting disapprovingly at when speaking of promiscuity and hedonism in the rest of Winchester, but those are a matter of passion and romance.

This — what he and Dean are meant to do — is a matter of duty and efficiency.

And yet, those are Dean’s hands skimming up his arms, resting against his neck and jaw with a tension that suggests they’re holding back. That’s Dean’s mouth, a mouth Cas has watched smile and laugh and sneer and scowl and _soften,_ moving restlessly against his own, a question rapidly blurring into demand _._

“What are you doing?” Cas tries to ask, but he forgets to pull back, and it comes out muffled.

Dean must understand, anyway, because he draws back, giving Cas a vaguely desperate look.

“Cas — Cas, if we’re doing this, I — I need — you have to let me kiss you. Please.”

His thumbs twitch against the skin right behind Cas’s earlobes as he speaks, and Cas wonders if he realizes he’s tilting Cas’s head slightly.

“Alright,” Cas agrees, at a loss as to why this is apparently important to Dean, but Dean looks so immensely grateful Cas can hardly begrudge him it.

He doesn’t have _time_ to, at any rate, because then Dean is leaning back in, hands slipping down to Cas’s shoulders to pull at him, and Cas awkwardly scrambles forward on the bed to bring himself closer.

On his knees like this, Dean has to lean up to kiss him, and Cas’s back bows awkwardly as he tries to keep his head in proximity.

And he _does_ try; it’s new and confusing and he can’t shake the feeling that he’s doing it wrong, but Dean doesn’t seem to mind, and as the seconds pass and Cas adjusts to the rhythm of Dean’s lips against his, he feels a strange sense of urgency to maintain that proximity, to not break the kiss.

The kiss — the kiss feels — _nice._ The kiss feels extremely nice, in a way that’s hard to describe, because it’s happening to his mouth, which certainly feels nice, but there’s also a rushing, tingling sensation in the rest of his body, even though it’s not involved in the kiss. It’s absurd, but Cas would almost say it feels like it _wants_ to be, like it’s capable of such an impossible desire.

Uncertain, he lifts his hands to the front of Dean’s shirt, holding on for balance, and Dean makes some kind of sound, soft and deep at the same time, that Cas _feels_ move through him.

Then Dean’s hands drop further, grasping at his waist and hauling him into his lap.

Cas grunts in surprise, but the kissing hasn’t stopped, and this is much more comfortable, taking the strain off his thighs and allowing him to settle lower so he doesn’t have to bend funny, which leaves him to focus on the contact of their mouths, the way Dean’s scent is so thick and present this close it fills his lungs and seems to linger, the way his hands move back up to tangle in Cas’s hair as he angles his head and opens his mouth, tongue brushing gently across Cas’s lips.

Cas has no idea what the rules of kissing are for a situation like this, a situation that didn’t call for kissing in the first place, so he mimics Dean and opens, and is startled by the way Dean immediately licks inside.

Cas read about tongues in mouths they didn’t start out in; to be honest, he found the idea somewhat disgusting.

It is a surprise, then, that after a few disconcerting seconds of strangeness, Dean’s tongue feels _incredible_ in his mouth.

Cas doesn’t hesitate, this time. He pushes his own tongue forward, a tremor rolling through him at the sensation it produces, the two of them tangling together, and Dean makes another sound that Cas can feel as if it came from his own throat, and it is then that Cas makes another startling discovery.

Kissing is _wonderful._

He loses himself to it, arms winding around Dean’s neck and shoulders in an instinctive struggle to get closer, and Dean’s fingers work madly through his hair, teasing at his temple and neck and jaw and _that’s_ wonderful, too, and suddenly all of Cas’s doubts about the benevolence of his God are called into question.

Maybe this is a — a _reward,_ since omegas must cater to their alphas’ lustful instincts. Dean might not be his alpha, but intimacy is happening anyway, and Cas is suddenly confident he’s reaping some benefit deliberately included in the whole design. He can’t think of any other explanation for just how much he’s enjoying this (although he is, admittedly, having a little trouble thinking at all).

Dean draws away, taking a deep breath, and then presses back in, and this time, his hands fall back down to Cas’s hips, broad and warm and breathtakingly suggestive where they slip over the sharp points of his hipbones.

But then it occurs to Cas that it’s a suggestion of what comes _next_ , which — well, that doesn’t seem fair _,_ because Cas is enjoying the kissing _immensely_ and he’s not ready for it to be sidelined in favor of Dean’s pleasure.

He doesn’t think twice. He shifts back a little, grabbing Dean’s hands, and uses his leverage to shove Dean onto his back.

And then, deliberately threading their fingers together, Cas starts kissing him again.

It’s entirely possible Dean will protest, will _insist —_ but Cas thinks of all the hours he wastes in Cas’s garden without a word of criticism for it, and he prays Dean will prove just as indulgent in this matter, as well.

“Oh, fuck — Cas,” Dean says, but apparently doesn’t mean it as discouragement, because then his fingers tighten around Cas’s and he’s enthusiastically returning the kiss, and Cas is stunned by how much he likes _that,_ too, by the effect Dean’s active participation seems to have on all the sheer _sensation_ he’s feeling.

It’s almost too much, but he wants more of it, thinks he’d sprint after it indefinitely were it a tangible thing trying to evade him, and he clumsily bears down against Dean, determined to make this part last as long as earthly possible.

He thinks he does; he kisses Dean, gripping his hands so tight Cas is sure they must be going numb, and Dean kisses him back, hands holding equally fast. It feels like both seconds and forever before Dean makes a rough noise and turns his face, trying to free his hands.

“Cas — Cas, I need — can I—" he pants, cheeks flushed nearly scarlet beneath his freckles and eyes almost turned black, despite the nearby light of the candle. Cas has spent the better part of the last few months trying to disregard the prince’s handsomeness, but right now, he’s incapable of identifying him as anything other than beautiful.

Still, a tremor of nervousness slips through Cas once Dean’s meaning sinks in, but he loosens his grip on him anyway, drawing away.

Dean’s hands fly to his waist, eyes worried, and Cas takes several deep, shuddering breaths, trying to calm himself.

He might as well have just run miles, given the state he’s in. He doesn’t understand how _kissing_ can do that, but he doesn’t regret a moment of it, would have kissed Dean for hours more if he’d been allowed.

“I don’t, um. I don’t know how.”

There’s a flicker of anxiety in Dean’s eyes, and Cas suddenly remembers what he’d planned to talk to Dean about.

“It’s alright if you don’t, either,” he says quickly, for some reason feeling compelled to shift his weight to one elbow in order to press his other palm to Dean’s cheek. “I know you said you did, but I understand if you lied.”

Dean’s red, unusually swollen lips tug upward at the corners, though his brow remains furrowed.

“Well, thanks, Cas, but I, uh, I didn’t lie. Trust me, I know what to do, I just — you reminded me you don’t, and I — that doesn’t seem right.”

Cas swallows.

“I’m sorry.”

Dean blinks, then shakes his head.

“No, don’t be — I meant—" He cuts off. “You, uh, you told me, at the inn, that you liked knowing what was going on.”

“People generally do.”

Dean huffs a laugh, some of the tension in his expression fading, and something about it all makes Cas wish they were kissing again. He’s still on his knees, looming over Dean, and his legs are beginning to ache. If he’s going to be uncomfortable, he can’t help but think he deserves something to show for it.

Dean nods, then reaches up, covering the hand on his face with one of his own.

“Okay, Cas. I, uh. Here’s what’s gonna happen,” he starts, and Cas relaxes a little. Dean’s going to tell him. That — that’s actually _extremely_ reassuring.

He pushes up a little so he can settle back and just sit on Dean — it’s not that different than sitting in his lap earlier, so Cas assumes he won’t mind — but Dean hisses and abruptly pushes him off.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Cas, I‘m struggling to keep my head as it is, here,” he grumbles, shifting away, but Cas doesn’t even bother trying to parse his words.

He’s too busy being horrified, because sitting back against Dean’s hips brought to light the fact that his body is doing the kinds of things it only does during a heat and, very occasionally, in the early mornings.

That, he decides numbly, would be the tingling sensation in his body, then. He feels stupid for not recognizing it.

How _could_ he, though? When he wakes up, he’s often _tired,_ and his focus is devoted to being annoyed with it. And when he’s in _heat,_ it’s dwarfed by overwhelming need and anxiety and restlessness and a physically painful sense of unfulfillment.

Both instances utterly lack the pure, gratifying pleasure of kissing Dean.

“Sorry,” he mutters, at a loss as to how to handle the situation. There’s not a lot he can do; Dean’s going to tell him how they’ll proceed, and then they’ll proceed, and hopefully it won’t be a problem.

Dean hastily rolls back over, placing a hand against Cas’s nightshirt.

“Hey, no, it’s fine, I just — I — I’m not all here. I’m trying, I swear to God, but if you do things like that, odds go up I’ll lose it and I don’t — that’s worst-case scenario, for me.”

Cas nods, though he’s not quite sure he understands.

He likes Dean’s hand resting against his chest, though. It’s grounding.

He wonders if Dean can feel how fast his heart is beating.

Dean nods, fingers curling in the material as he takes a deep breath.

“Okay. Okay, so — so we’ve gotta — I’m gonna undress you, okay, and get undressed — or you can undress yourself, if you want — hell, you can undress _me,_ if you want, I really don’t care how that happens, but it kinda needs to, and then, uh. Well, I’m probably gonna kiss you some more, sorry—" Cas perks up, baffled as to why Dean would be _sorry_ about that, “- and then I’m gonna — touch you.”

Cas tilts his head, and if anything, Dean colors even more.

“This is the most fucked up dirty talk ever,” he mutters, and takes a deep breath. “So — I’m gonna — well, see, I use my fingers to —" He shuts his mouth, frowning. “Wait, you said something about animals. You’ve seen that?”

Cas nods.

“Yes. Is it the same?”

Dean makes a face.

“I — I mean, not _exactly,_ but — oh, for fuck’s sake — do you know what a dick is?”

Cas stares at him for a moment.

And then, to his own surprise, he starts laughing.

He laughs even harder at the way Dean’s disgruntled, embarrassed expression melts into pure shock, and then he has to turn over and bury his snickering into a pillow.

“Oh, shut up, you ass, it was a reasonable question!”

Cas doesn’t remember laughing so hard in his _life._

“You know what? I hope you accidentally _smother_ yourself!”

Eventually, Cas settles down enough to form a response, and when he looks over, Dean is propped on his elbows, forearms crossed over one another and wearing a scowl.

“There’s a lot I don’t know, Dean,” he manages. “But yes, I know what a ‘dick’ is.”

Dean huffs.

“Listen, buddy, _you’re_ the one who said you _didn’t know_ what to do, okay? I was just — covering my bases.”

Cas nods.

“I appreciate that, Dean.” He pauses. “If it helps, I think I even know where it goes.”

Dean’s mouth flattens.

“But I’m not sure,” Cas adds, just to be helpful. Technically, he _isn’t._

Still, for some reason, Dean outright _glowers._

“Okay, _well,_ before _that_ can happen, I have to — I’ve gotta — the going-place needs to be ready, okay?”

Cas cocks his head.

“Ready? Don’t you just put it i—"

“ _No,_ Cas! I don’t just — no! That’s — I mean, maybe if you were in heat, or if you were _really_ turned on, but even then, probably not the first few times, and — and the point is, it could hurt like a bitch if I don’t, and neither of us want that!”

Which, that’s certainly true, but -

“Turned on?” he queries, and after a confused pause, Dean lifts his brows.

“What, you don’t know what it means? Man of the world like you, knowin’ all about dicks and places you can stick ‘em, doesn’t know—"

“Don’t be crass,” Cas admonishes, disturbed by how amused he actually feels.

This huge, alarming thing is about to happen, and Cas still feels strangely hot and giddy from all the kissing, and on top of that, he wants to _laugh._

He wonders if it’s always like this, though given the terrifyingly vague instructions he received, he finds that hard to believe.

“ _You_ don’t be crass,” Dean mutters, lightly pinching Cas through his shirt, and sighs. “Turned on. Like, uh. Really — enjoying all the, uh, stuff, that’s happening.”

Cas squints.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to enjoy it.”

If anything, Dean looks irritated.

“That’s bullshit, and either way, we’re sure as hell gonna _try._ A nd actually, if you _hate_ it, nobody’s dick is going anywhere tonight. Got it?” he grits out, giving Cas a suspicious look.

It’s a bizarre threat, but clearly very sincere, and Cas finds it all strangely thrilling.

“I ‘got it,’ Dean,” he agrees, and Dean looks relieved.

“Okay. Okay, so — uh. What did I say?”

Cas studies him a moment longer — he has the nonsensical thought that he wishes Dean had a garden, where Cas could sit quietly and stare at _him_ for hours — and then lifts a hand to touch Dean’s collar.

“Someone undresses. Or undresses someone else.”

Dean licks his lips.

“Yeah, weirdest dirty talk ever,” he says under his breath, and then sits up, stripping off his night shirt.

He pauses halfway out of it, looking worried.

“Uh. Did you want to go first?”

Cas thinks about it.

“No,” he decides. Something about the idea of being fully unclothed while Dean was not is unsettling.

Dean nods, and then shifts around, struggling out of his sleep pants.

Cas blinks, startled. He _does_ know what a dick is — he _has_ one, in fact — but Dean’s is somehow very different. Especially given its current sta-

His vision is abruptly obscured by a hastily positioned pillow.

“Cas, don’t _stare_ at it!” Dean chokes out, and Cas immediately looks away, apologetic. After all, he’s hoping Dean doesn’t want to look at _him_ very closely. That sounds incredibly awkward for all parties involved.

“Sorry,” he says, and Dean sniffs.

“It’s — fine, I guess, but — yeah, don’t.” He coughs. “Okay, now you.”

“Do I undress me or do you undress me?”

Dean looks pained.

“What, uh. What do you want?”

After a beat of hesitation, Cas reaches for the tie on his own pants.

“You’re holding the pillow. I’ll do it.”

Dean lets out an odd wheezing noise, at that, but Cas ignores it in favor of squirming out of his pants.

Of course, that leaves his shirt, which — well. Dean took off his, so Cas expects it’s mandatory, but he’s a little worried about it.

Steeling himself, he pulls it up over his head and decides there’s no point putting it off.

Dean will see, eventually.

Despite his own tightly-clutched pillow, Dean’s gaze immediately starts drawing down over Cas’s form with a disturbing, almost palpable thoroughness, and Cas shoots him an offended look.

“I thought you said—"

Dean’s eyes quickly flick back up, looking guilty.

“Yeah, yeah, no, I did, sorry, I just — you’re — uh. Anyway.”

Cas just sort of lies back awkwardly, unsure.

Although—

“You said you were going to kiss me again,” he points out, and Dean’s expression turns funny.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” He swallows. “I’m gonna — it’ll be different, like this, okay?”

Cas nods, a little impatient and feeling both incredibly exposed and mildly resentful of the No Looking rule.

“Fine, Dean. Do it.”

Dean nods, looking a little dazed, and then he’s tentatively crawling over Cas, bracing himself on his hands before ducking his head to cover Cas’s mouth with his own. Cas relaxes, even as all that muted feeling from before flares bright again, sparking beneath his bare skin and leaving every inch of it heated and buzzing with pleasure.

Still, it doesn’t feel all that different from before — until Dean lets out a soft moan and shifts onto his elbows, skin suddenly flush against Cas’s own, and all of a sudden, Cas just — he can’t — it’s different, it’s _so_ different, it’s _overwhelming._

“D-dean,” he stutters out, hands instinctively flying up to grip his shoulders. Dean’s hasty kisses slow, fervor lessening, and he tilts his forehead against Cas’s.

“You okay?”

_Is_ Cas okay? He can feel Dean breathing hard against him, the shaky rise and fall of his chest where it presses against Cas’s own, skin smooth and unexpectedly hot to touch. It feels like they’re touching _everywhere,_ and they are. He can feel Dean’s hardness against his stomach, and though it makes him a little less embarrassed about the resurgence of his own situation, it’s still unnerving. Dean’s bare thighs are settled on either side of one of Cas’s, and all together Cas feels weighed down and surrounded and suddenly, acutely aware of what’s to follow.

He can’t believe he was laughing a moment ago.

“I — yes. Uh, yes, I — I think so.” He sounds unsure, even to himself, and Dean starts pulling away, but Cas isn’t ready for that either, so he tightens his grip on Dean’s shoulders, forcing him to stay still.

This is okay. Of _course_ it’s okay, it’s something that must happen at some point, and it’s also something that turned out to possess unexpectedly gratifying moments, and Cas is utterly baffled how he can go from dazed with pleasure in one instant, to a sudden attack of nerves the next.

It’s — it’s Dean. Dean, of whom he is not afraid. Dean, who is indulging him with a great deal more kissing than Cas suspects is usually involved in these things. Dean, who touches him with broad, calloused hands Cas has spent hours watching at the reins, now open in their own nervousness, as if control is something utterly foreign to Dean when it is, in fact, part of what makes a prince.

And because it’s Dean, Cas knows what happens next. Dean is going to prepare him — although now that Cas thinks of it, he was frustratingly unclear on what exactly that entails — and then the actual intercourse will happen, just as it was always meant to.

And then he’ll do it again, because cycles last a few days, and then Cas might end up with child, and then he’ll carry it and give birth to it and then go to the Gardens, alone once again.

At that thought, his whole body goes cold.

Cas has thought of heirs before, has thought of his purpose and what will become of him once he’s served it.

Cas has failed to think of _children_ , children he never expected to have in the first place, or what becomes of him once he leaves them behind.

He does now, and an entirely new terror grips him, almost certainly foolish instinct but real and terrible to him nonetheless.

“When I go to the Gardens,” he blurts out, fingers still digging into Dean’s shoulders. “I know — I’m not supposed to have undue influence, but can I — can I see them? Just, um, occasionally, just — just for a little while.”

Dean blinks dumbly down at him, and Cas looks back, searching his face for any sign of concession, any hope he can latch onto and try to encourage.

And then all of the sudden, Dean’s jerking free, rolling away with a curse and scrambling for the nearest piece of discarded clothing.

“ _Fuck_ . Fuck _,_ what the hell am I _doing,_ you — I — son of a bitch, this isn’t—"

Cas hastily maneuvers into a sitting position, regarding him nervously.

“Uh. I — I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—"

“No, _no,_ you definitely should have, you fucking should have _half an hour ago_! I — this goddamn rut, it’s melting my brain, I know better, I should never have—“ He takes a deep breath, pressing his face into his hands. “You need to go, Cas.”

Cas’s heart sinks.

“But your rut—"

“Fuck my rut, we’re not doing this right now,” Dean snaps, then winces. “Just — look, just go back to your room, okay?”

Cas nods, fumbling for his own pajamas with shaking hands.

He’s an _idiot._

“Alright.”

He doesn’t look at Dean again as he dresses. His whole body seems to be confused by the shifting mood, and there’s a fine tremor going through it as he smoothes down his shirt and tries to think of what he can say to fix this.

He could try to stay, try to insist Dean move forward — Dean’s probably angry, now, even if he won’t actively retaliate over it, and if Cas wants a kinder answer to that question at a later date, it might behoove him to see this through.

But he _doesn’t_ have an answer to that question, and the possibilities feel both imminent and terrifying. His calm from earlier has fled entirely, and at this point, Cas feels less ready than he ever has.

He doesn’t want to stay, so he mumbles a ‘good night,’ and shuffles out the chamber door, praying no one is waiting outside it.

The hall is empty.

Relieved, but still shaken, Cas begins the long walk back to his room.

***

“Bobby,” Dean demands, about thirty-six hours later when it becomes clear that a drug-induced rut burns out the way it comes on — which is to say, quickly — “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

Bobby grunts at him, and then does a double-take, nose scrunching.

“Boy, did you even have a bath before you came down here?”

Dean hesitates.

“Uh. _Anyway,_ I — I can’t keep doing this. I need help.”

Bobby scowls.

“With _what,_ boy?”

“Cas! I — Bobby, I think he’s telling the truth. He’s not — he’s not trying to kill me.”

The expression on Bobby’s face at that is briefly confusing, until Dean remembers he hadn’t shared those particular fears with him.

“You thought he was—"

“He lifted a whole carriage by himself!” Dean points out hastily. “And his attitude kept switching back and forth and then he wanted a garden and then he _baked me a pie_ and who _does_ that?!”

Bobby opens his mouth.

“Yes, I know, _Cas,_ apparently, crazy bastard, but I _didn’t_ know that. Anyway, that — it doesn’t matter anymore, because he’s not, which means I’ve been an ass and — god damn it, it means I’m right back to square one where this whole stupid kidnapping thing is concerned, and we almost — _I_ almost — because I was in rut, and I forgot, and he’s — fuck, he’s so beautiful, Bobby, and he smells fucking _amazing,_ and then he looks at you with these big blue eyes and I just — I completely lost my head for a minute—"

“Get to the point, Dean,” Bobby interjects tiredly, and Dean nods, forcing himself away from thoughts of Cas and Cas looking at him and Cas kissing him and he’s _sure_ Cas was kissing him, distinctly remembers Cas pushing him back on the bed and _holding his hands_ and—

Bobby grunts.

“Dean.”

“Right, sorry, so — so yeah, I was dumb, but then it was all the _council_ — Tara put something in my drink, and it almost _worked,_ but — but even if it didn’t, at some point, they still expect me to — jesus, Bobby, I can’t — I can’t just _do_ that to him and take his kids and banish him to the countryside!” Dean pauses, trying to catch his breath. “That — it’s shitty! It’s shitty and we never — I had no business taking him in the first place.”

Bobby regards him silently for a long, heavy moment, and then he sighs.

“I don’t much like it, myself, Dean — but it’s how it is.”

“So? _Why_ ? Why does it have to be this way? Dad refused, why do _I_ have to—"

“Because you do. Unless you wanna renounce and put your brother through all this shit instead — or unless you’ve got your own Mary tucked away in one o’ the noble houses — you have to, Dean. It ain’t right, but it’s how it is.”

“Why can’t we just _change?_ ” he asks, frustrated, because it’s beyond him how anyone on the council can think this is an okay thing to do a person, whether they’re from a shitty near-cult of a town or not.

“’Cause we’re assholes,” Bobby says frankly. “And not everybody wants to. When you’re King, when some of these jackoffs kick the bucket — you can stack your council how you like and fight that battle before your son’s gotta do anything you did. Until then — you live with it.”

Dean’s _son._ Bobby says it like it’s nothing, the way he and Dean and everyone else said it before they knew Dean would be going to New Eden.

The word carries more weight now.

Dean couldn’t even picture his son before, saw no reason to.

Now — he knows the boy Bobby’s talking about might look like Cas. Might have wide, serious blue eyes that crinkle when he laughs, might shift from soft and contemplative to boot-quakingly severe. Dean can picture him, the spit and image of Cas, donning the Crown Prince’s armor and riding into battle with the same stoicism Cas had when he came with Dean and left everything he knew behind.

And it’s true, it’s just as likely that son’ll be more like Dean, but he thinks, even if he’s staring at blonde hair and green eyes and a million obnoxious freckles, he’s not gonna forget for an instant who gave them to him.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he mumbles, dropping into the chair opposite Bobby, suddenly exhausted. “I really — I don’t think I can.”

Bobby grimaces.

“If I could get ya out of it, I would. I don’t know how to. If it ain’t the kid from New Eden, it’ll be somebody else. Even if they compensated a noblewoman, like they used to.”

It’s a testament to how fucked up this situation is that the idea of it _not_ being Cas somehow seems worse.

But if Cas really isn’t trying to kill him — and at this point, Dean has to _try_ in order to doubt that, because people who want you dead don’t kiss you like that and then clutch at your shoulders and ask you to let them see their children once you banish them from the goddamn city — then not only does Dean owe him an apology for the other night, he owes him an apology for all the ones before it.

“I didn’t do it,” he mutters, and Bobby squints.

“I got that.”

“I told him to leave, so we — so I wouldn’t.”

“Well, ‘s’probably for the best. Ain’t any of my business, but it sounds like the two o’ you might have some things to work out.”

Dean nods.

“When he left — he, uh. He turned around. To get dressed.” Dean remembers staring, remembers thinking he should say something _,_ even if it was just to reassure Cas they’d talk later and to have a nice night — _something —_ and finding himself speechless instead. “He’s — his back is just — _covered_ in scars.”

Bobby makes a face.

“Scars? What kind o’ scars?”

“Somebody — whipped him. _Badly._ He’s a mess.”

Dean can’t really picture Cas doing anything to deserve that, even if he were the type to go around poisoning entitled princes.

And maybe it was a one-off, but now that Dean’s not on the defensive, trying to fit everything into one big seduction-slash-murder plot, he’s realizing he took some of the things Cas said for granted. Cas had said he’d probably be killed, if he went back. Dean thought it was a tactic, at the time, but now he’s thinking Cas’s back pretty much speaks for itself.

Even if Dean can somehow put a stop to this whole fucked up affair — what is Cas supposed to _do_ ? If he really can’t go home, then where _can_ he go?

How the hell is Dean supposed to _fix_ any of this?

“Well. Not much you can do about that.” Bobby pauses. “Just — y’know, don’t be makin’ it worse.”

_A little late for that,_ Dean thinks, stomach churning.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll — do my best, I guess.”

He just hopes his best means figuring a way out for both of them.

In retrospect, Cas picked the wrong time to ask.

As it stands, he’s the wrong _person_ to ask. Anna, for all her stubbornness and ire, could still play her role quite effectively when the situation demanded. All omega women are taught that skill, taught how to make themselves soft and inviting, to appeal to an alpha’s instinct to care for them.

Cas was not that kind of omega, and no one ever even tried to teach him those skills. He doesn’t even know how to make himself an object of _pity_ — and he does think that, if Dean pitied him, he is the type of person who would be kinder.

And Cas is also aware that, his own deficiencies aside, alphas are prey to their lustful instincts. The intelligent thing to do would have been to bite his tongue, to try and make himself more tempting and wait until Dean had found his pleasure. _That_ would have been the right time to ask, a moment where Dean was pleased and at ease and had firsthand evidence of Cas’s value.

But Cas has _always_ been terrible with people, and Dean is no different, and so he—

Well, he ‘fucked it up,’ as the residents of Winchester Castle would say.

It wears at him; just when he’d mostly overcome fear of one unknown, his mind went ahead and conjured up another, and now he’s just trapped in his bedchamber waiting for a verdict.

Kate, for some reason, seems relieved to find him there the next morning.

“He sent me away after the guards left,” Cas explains. He decides she doesn’t need to know about all the kissing, or how he embarrassed himself.

Kate smiles for some reason, lightly punching his shoulder.

“See? He’s not always an ass.”

Cas just manages to return the smile, though it’s hard to appreciate her point. Cas knew Dean was capable of not being an ass. Admittedly, it appears to be a struggle for him, but it happens.

What Cas doesn’t know is how that relates to Dean sending him away. Though Cas returned to his own bed, pitifully relieved and desperate for more time to come to terms with this new facet of reality, he doesn’t kid himself that because of it, there won’t be _problems_ again.

He’s very, very tired of problems between him and Dean. In an ideal world, there’d just be nights like the festival and friendly silence in the garden and Dean’s occasional, absent-minded chatter.

(And kissing, he catches himself thinking, then resolutely pushes the thought aside. Kissing is part of the intimacy bargain, and Cas is no longer sure he’s ready to commit to paying that price.)

He stays in his room for two days, and on the second evening, sometime after dinner, there’s a knock at his door. Half of him hopes it’s Sam and Charlie, but another half of him feels weirdly embarrassed, even though he doubts they know of anything that transpired. Either way, he’s not about to turn down company, and he answers it without hesitation.

“Uh. Hey, Cas.”

Dean offers him a tentative smile, hands tucked in his trouser pockets. He’s clearly freshly bathed, and aside from soap and his usual scent, Cas can detect nothing amiss.

“That was fast,” he remarks, not thinking.

“Came on fast, too.” Dean shrugs. “But yeah, it — it’s over.”

Cas nods, then belatedly steps back so Dean can come in. Dean smiles at him again, and Cas stares at that smile for a moment, suddenly very conscious of how that mouth felt against his own two nights ago.

He looks down and shuts the door.

“I think it’s too late to go riding,” he tries, and Dean lets out a short laugh.

“Uh, yeah, I think you’re right. I’m not — don’t worry, I won’t stay long, I just wanted to . . . well, talk, I guess. Just for a few minutes.”

“Alright.” Cas’s voice comes out unexpectedly small. He hopes Dean doesn’t notice.

Dean hesitates, then gestures toward the table.

“Uh. Wanna — sit?”

Cas takes some measure of comfort in how uncertain Dean sounds, as well, and nods, cautiously taking a seat.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Dean licks his lip, index finger starting to tap against the table a little.

“Uh, well, just — actually, a — a couple of things. First, though, I just — I wanted to say, uh. I’m sorry.”

Cas’s brows lift.

“Sorry?” he echoes. “For what?”

Dean gives him a look, some peculiar combination of amused and terrified.

“Think the list of things I _shouldn’t_ be sorry for is shorter.”

Cas blinks.

“I don’t understand.”

“Look, Cas, I wasn’t — since you got here — I really did think you wanted me dead. I mean, who wouldn’t, in your situation, and then you’re so — well, you’re a lot of things, and all together, I just thought . . . but that was wrong. I’ve — damn it, I’ve treated you like shit and I — I don’t know what to do about it, because I never thought I’d _have_ to, you know? I thought you’d try and kill me and I’d send you to the Gardens and that would be that.”

At that, Cas squints.

“If I tried to kill you, you’d still just send me to the _G_ _ardens_?”

“Huh? Uh. Yeah?”

“Wouldn’t I be executed? Or at least — thrown in the dungeons?”

Dean opens his mouth, then shuts it.

Then he swallows, hand moving up to rub at his neck.

“Uh, well, I mean, maybe normally, but — but you know, it’s not, uh, usual circumstances and — I don’t know, man, that just didn’t seem — I mean, it’d be better to send you to where you would have been meant to go if you _hadn’t_ tried to kill me, right? Kind of poetic?”

Cas, for his part, utterly fails to see how it’s poetic that he’s apparently going to suffer the same fate as he would if he tried to _murder a member of the royal family,_ but he supposes it’s irrelevant, now.

“Well, I understand that the situation was . . . uncomfortable for you, as well. I assume you were trying to cope.”

Dean blinks, then ducks his chin.

“Uh. I don’t know about that — you’ve gotta admit, you’re kind of a weird dude, Cas, trying to cope or not, but — yeah, I was uncomfortable. Am. I mean, obviously not as uncomfortable as _you’ve_ been, but — you know, I didn’t think — since my Dad married my Mom, I kind of thought I’d find someone and get married, too. And then they told me I’d have to go to New Eden and . . . well, get _you_.”

Cas tilts his head.

“I’m sorry. You must have been disappointed.”

Dean gives him a frustrated look.

“No. Dude, no, that’s not — you’re not supposed to say sorry to _me,_ you’re supposed to — the point is, I didn’t grow up expecting that. I thought it was a thing of the past, because it’s — well, it’s shitty, okay? What happened to you — what’s _happening_ to you is shitty. And yeah, being the one who has to do it to you makes me shitty by proxy.”

Cas frowns.

“I told you the other night, Dean. This is your duty, and mine. Regardless of our feelings about it.”

“Right,” Dean mumbles, then slumps a little in his chair. “Look, Cas, the point is — I had all these plans to try and make it as — as _not_ shitty for you as possible, and then you lifted that carriage and you were _you_ and I was an idiot, and I—I’m sorry for that. I know that doesn’t mean a lot, after everything I’ve done, but — I am.”

Cas nods. There’s not really anything to argue, there. It _was_ very stupid of Dean to figure Cas for an assassin.

Still . . .

“Alright. Thank you.”

Dean manages a small, tense smile, almost a grimace, and takes a deep breath.

“And — I’m sorry about the other night. They just — sprung that on me, and I lost control, and I almost — yeah. That would have been wrong.”

_That,_ Cas must object to.

“I should be the one apologizing, Dean. I failed to fully think it through, what I’m doing here. I panicked. But you were well within your rights—"

Dean tenses.

“My _rights_ — son of a bitch, Cas, that’s just _it._ I don’t have a _right_ to you! _No one_ has a right to you!”

_Except y_ _ou do,_ Cas almost protests, but that appears to be the cause of both their disagreement and Dean’s increasing agitation, so he stays silent.

“Anyway,” Dean continues, voice a little rough. “Thank you, for — what you said, then, for what you were trying to do there, but — I know right now it looks like we’re out of options, but I’m — I’m gonna try and figure something out. So just — forget about all that, alright? About the whole goddamn tradition. Focus on your books and your garden and just — pretend none of that other bullshit exists.”

That’s much easier said than done, Cas thinks, but nods.

And then he gathers his nerve, and—

“And — what I, um. What I asked you. About — when I—"

Dean holds up a hand, looking pained, and Cas braces himself.

“Cas, that’s not — I don’t get to decide that. If it were up to me, any kids you ever have, whether they’re mine or not — they’d be _yours._ But — it’s not.”

Oh.

Well. At least he doesn’t have to worry about convincing Dean.

“I see.” He swallows, glancing down at the surface of the table. “Well. Thank you, anyway.”

Dean abruptly reaches out, gripping his hand.

“I don’t want it to come to that,” he insists. “That — just — give me time. I’m gonna try and find another way, I swear.”

Everything Dean has told him to date suggests that Dean is bound by the will of others; Cas can’t imagine what he thinks he can do.

Still, he nods.

“Alright.”

Dean excuses himself shortly after that, giving Cas a long, troubled look at the door.

“Hey — try not to worry?”

Cas smiles slightly, despite himself.

“I generally do, Dean. I know it doesn’t help anything.”

Some of the tension seems to leave him, and he gives Cas a small smile.

“Yeah? Well, uh. Keep it up. See you tomorrow?”

Cas inclines his head.

“I’ll be ready.” He pauses. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

Dean shrugs, watching him intently.

“Sure. Uh. Thanks for not trying to kill me, after all,” he jokes, but there’s a shadow in his eyes as he says it.

Dean is such a strange and fascinating person.

Cas, even more so, because right now, he almost thinks he’d like to—

He shakes his head.

“Good night, Dean.”

Then he carefully shuts the door, returns to his book, and tries, very hard, not to worry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> For the short version, please see the Story end notes. For the full summary (if you plan to skip the scene), please see below. ♡
> 
> Dubious consent: After the spiked drink induces Dean’s rut, Cas is brought to his room, where Dean tries to send him away but Cas points out that this is something that must happen eventually; after discussing it for a bit, Dean kisses him, and Cas is confused, but Dean pleads with him to let him kiss him, if they’re going to do this, so Cas obliges.  
> From this point, Cas determines that kissing Dean is an extremely pleasurable experience. They spend a considerable amount of time kissing, Cas doing his best to prolong it and delay the intercourse, but eventually Dean indicates a desire to proceed. Cas reminds him that he doesn’t know how, and they discuss what will happen. Before they can go much further, Cas becomes overwhelmed. In his effort to regain his bearings, he ends up thinking about having children – only to be separated from them and sent to the Gardens. He panics, and asks Dean if he’ll make an exception and allow Cas to see them, just briefly.  
> Horrified by what he was about to do, Dean pulls away, gathering his clothes and insisting Cas leave. Cas is very upset when he leaves, misunderstanding that he has done something wrong and understandably terrified of the future that awaits him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Cas in traditionally feminine clothing (nightgowns and drawers), Dean in nightgowns (dialogue borrowed from Scoobynatural), references to gender discrimination, past attempted rape/non-con (more details in the chapter notes), references to past abuse (more details in the chapter notes), mentions of hunting (Dean goes on a hunting trip, no details are given), please let me know if I missed anything.

“Hey, can I talk to Kate a minute?”

The maids seem to hold up their index fingers in unison, squinting at their card hands in deep thought, and Dean obligingly shuts his mouth to wait until they finally make their selections.

The round goes to a duly smug Krissy, and Kate sets down her cards with a hum.

“What’s up, Dean?”

He hesitates, shifting uncomfortably, and she stands.

“Be right back. Keep Em away from my cards.”

Emily lets out an appalled squeak, shooting Dean a frantic look.

“I never! I was just making sure they didn’t slide off the table!”

Kate just smiles enigmatically and wanders over to him, brow raised in question. Given how shitty Dean feels right now, the fact that she’s looking friendlier than she has since Cas first got here is all kinds of alarming.

Nonetheless, he makes himself speak.

“Listen, I was thinking — and we can hire more staff, if we need to, you guys are probably busy-”

“Well, you _are_ keeping me from a card game.”

“I mean, yeah? Breaks are part of your job, it’s not like you can just clear them from the schedule.”

For some reason, she smiles, shaking her head.

“We’re pretty well-staffed for the current workload, but I appreciate the thought.”

“Right,” Dean says distractedly, not sure what she’s getting at, “But — I was thinking a couple of you could, you know, make a habit of taking Cas down to his garden, in the evenings?”

Kate tilts her head.

“Evenings are pretty busy, but that should be doable. Just the nights you don’t, right?”

Dean swallows.

“Uh. Well . . . maybe it should be — every night? And even though he’s gotten pretty good, he should stay in practice, so if they can go riding with him every other night or something, too, that — that’d be ideal.”

Kate is frowning heavily, by the time he’s done.

“Okay. What about you?”

Dean shrugs, uncomfortable.

“I don’t, uh. I don’t think he should have to see me, you know?”

The frown doesn’t settle, despite the obvious logic there.

“What about the council? There’s a reason you’ve been doing it so far.”

He grimaces. The _reason_ has been less about the council, and more about Dean’s stupid-ass paranoia, but she’s not wrong.

“I’ll try and figure something out. In the meantime, I think, uh — this’ll be for the best.”

Which is a gross understatement; every time Dean thinks of Cas, clutching at his shoulders, sheer panic in his gaze, asking Dean if he could—

Anyway. Dean’s going to figure out a solution, to all of it, and until then, the less Cas has to think about it, the better. And the less he has to deal with the guy who’s been making his life hell, the guy who almost forced him to share his rut, the guy he thought would steal his goddamn children from him, when all was said and done—

Well, Dean’s capable of putting two and two together, and this solution has ‘four’ written all over it.

He’d be proud of himself if he wasn’t so fucking ashamed.

And he _is_ ashamed; it’s like a physical weight on his body, constant. He woke up the morning after they’d talked, and his first impulse was to go see Cas again, some restless itch beneath his skin telling him to fix things, even though there’s nothing he can really do. Even _now,_ even once he’s worked out what he _can_ do, there’s a part of him that still wants to see Cas, anyway _,_ but — he _is_ the problem. Cas’s entire fucking problem, right now, the root of everything wrong with his future, is _Dean,_ and from the minute he got here, he’s been forced to confront that problem every time he so much as wants to leave his room.

Kate studies him for a long moment, and then she tucks her hands in her pockets, nodding.

“Well, you’ve been an ass. Worse than. Actually, you’ve been downright cruel to him. I don’t think anyone thought you were capable of being that awful.”

Dean feels like he’s choking on something.

“Yeah. Yeah, I have. But—”

“And I don’t think anyone would blame him if he never forgave you.”

Dean certainly wouldn’t.

He nods, trying to swallow down the lump in his throat.

“I don’t expect him to.”

“Sure,” she says, shrugging. “But the thing is — I don’t think Cas _wants_ to never forgive you.”

Dean stares.

“Uh.”

“I think he wants to understand why everyone else likes you.” She studies him. “I think he was already starting to.”

“He shouldn’t.” Dean shakes his head. As it is, asking Cas to trust him to get him out of this is a stretch. “I don’t know how he could.”

“Eh, you’re not _that_ bad — when you don’t think someone is trying to kill you,” she adds, smile wry.

Dean’s not amused.

“Look, I told him I was gonna try and . . . find a way around it. This whole mess. But until then, I think — it’s better for him if he doesn’t have to-”

“I think it’s better for him if he gets as many choices as possible,” she interrupts. “I’ll tell him it’s an option, Dean. Maybe you’re right. But if he does want to see you — if he wants to _forgive_ you — I think instead of wallowing in guilt, you should try and give him as many good reasons to do that as you can.”

Which sounds great when she says it like that, but the way things are, Dean can think of literally _no_ good reason for Cas to do either thing.

“Right,” he mutters. “I’ll . . . try that.”

She untucks her hands, straightening.

“You really should. I’ll let you know what he says.”

Which, once she’s sent Dean away to stew some more — he’s pretty sure she’s _wrong._ As soon as Cas hears that he doesn’t have to deal with Dean’s bullshit anymore, he’s going to take it and run, no questions asked.

After all, who _wouldn’t_?

Anyway, Dean’s worse than useless in training — which isn’t to say he’s wallowing in guilt, or anything — and by the time Bobby dismisses him, pity in his gaze, he’s ready to haul as much ale as he can carry out of the kitchen stores and drink himself into oblivion while he tries not to think too hard about ugly dirt streaks on pretty dresses or obliterated pies or confused, unhappy blue eyes every time Dean made some callous, sarcastic remark when all Cas was trying to do here was-

“Dean,” Kate calls behind him, and he flinches.

“Yeah?” he asks, steeling himself as he turns to face her. It’s not like it will be news; it was his own damn idea.

Still, it _was_ his idea, and it was also a lot easier to stomach when he was the one taking initiative instead of having to hear, for sure, that Cas didn’t want to see him.

“I talked to Cas.”

Dean tries not to make a face.

“Right.”

Her lips quirk.

“I think you hurt his feelings.”

At that, his stomach drops.

“ _What_? When? I haven’t even talked to him since I-”

“When you suggested you stop seeing him,” she says dryly, reaching out to pat his shoulder. “Remember, Dean — reasons. _Good_ ones. Don’t fuck it up.”

Bewildered, Dean just watches her turn and head back down the hall.

And then, when meaning finally sinks in, despite all logical reasoning—

He starts trying to figure out the impossible.

Cas isn’t sure what to expect, the next time Dean comes to see him.

He’s worried it won’t happen, after what Kate asked him — Cas still doesn’t understand what Dean intended, by suggesting such a thing, and even if the choice was _supposedly_ left up to him, he’s afraid Dean already decided — but after a somewhat fitful night, Kate brings him breakfast and asks him if it’s okay if Dean comes by at noon.

“Alright. That seems . . . early, though. Do you know what he wants?”

She pauses, giving the tray a speculative look.

“Not really,” she admits. “But I wouldn’t worry about it.”

He worries anyway.

“Did he . . . do you know why he . . .”

Kate lifts a brow slightly, but Cas finds he can’t quite continue.

“Never mind,” he says, reaching for the coffee. “I’ll be ready at noon, then.”

She nods.

“Want me to bring some lunch for you guys?”

Assuming Dean isn’t going to duck in just to let Cas know they won’t be seeing much of one another, then Cas supposes lunch might be nice.

On the other hand, the _last_ time he tried to have lunch with Dean, the most important part of it ended up on the floor.

Still . . .

“If you don’t mind. I think — that would be good.” At the very least, if Dean stays for lunch, it gives Cas more time to figure out where they stand.

(To figure out why Dean had Kate ask him what she did.)

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll let him know.”

She comes back five minutes before Dean is due to arrive, Emily in tow, and they leave the lunch trays on the table.

“Want me to wait with you till he gets here?” she offers, once Emily has left, and he sighs.

“Am I obvious?”

“A little, but it’s okay. I really _don’t_ think it’s going to be anything bad, but . . . it’s not like it hasn’t been, before.”

Cas looks down.

“He apologized for that after the festival. Even before, he was — things were better. But . . . I don’t know what to expect, now.”

She nods.

“I get that. At least for now, though — I think it’ll be okay. I’ll come back to clear the dishes and check on you just in case, though.”

If it does turn out to be a bad visit, he’s not entirely sure what she can do, but he's reassured anyway.

"Thank you. I appreciate it."

Kate smiles.

"Sure, Cas." She crouches in front of his bookcase, then, plucking a few volumes from the shelves to put in a priority pile, and by the time she’s done instructing him which ones to read first, it’s three minutes past twelve and Cas’s anxiety is returning in force.

“Do you think-” he starts, worried they misunderstood the time, but a knock on the door prevents him from finishing.

Kate grins, getting to her feet.

“Don't worry, it’s polite to be a few minutes late."

“He’s usually early.”

“That’s because he’s rude,” she says cheerfully, and gestures to the door. “Want me to get that, or . . .?”

Cas swallows, standing up from his perch on the edge of the bed and smoothing his tan waistcoat.

“No, I will.”

Steeling himself, he heads for the door and, after a pause, opens it.

He sucks in a surprised breath at the face on the other side.

“Well, hello again, gorgeous,” Pamela drawls, reaching out to straighten his haphazardly done blue cravat with a mischievous smile. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

Cas just stares, torn between shock and a powerful delight, bubbling up within.

“I — I didn’t — I thought Dean was-”

She chuckles, glancing over her shoulder.

“Hurry up, grumpy!” she calls, then adds, “Or else this door is shutting without you on the right side of it.”

“Pamela, don’t you _dare_ -” comes Dean’s voice, oddly strained, and Pamela winks at Cas.

“Mm, I don’t know if I’ll be able to help myself-”

Cas swears he hears a muffled growl from the hallway, and then Dean appears behind her, breathing heavily.

Or rather, _most_ of Dean appears behind her; there’s three bulging bags slung over his shoulders, and his arms are full of bolts of cloth, one of which obscures half his flushed, irritated expression.

“Stop harassing the guy. You’re supposed to be a _professional_.”

Pamela’s smile turns a little devious.

“We’re all supposed to be a lot of things, but I guess Castiel here just has an effect on people. Makes them go a little _crazy._ ”

Dean is curiously silent at that, and after another moment to recover his surprise, Cas hastily steps back, gesturing them inside.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you’d be here, so I couldn’t order lunch for you — but you’re welcome to have mine,” he starts, and Pamela firmly shakes her head.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll take Dean’s coffee though,” she adds, and then opens her arms. “And a hug from you, if you don’t mind?”

When he’d first met Pamela, a hug would have made him very uncomfortable, even if he suspects he still would have appreciated the contact. Now, though, Charlie hugs him every time she says goodbye, and though Cas feels a little shy about stepping forward now, he doesn’t think twice about doing it.

Besides; he wasn’t completely expecting to see Pamela again, and for all he knows, he might not get to after this.

“You’ve gotten good at this,” she praises him, squeezing him tight, and though he’s a little puzzled by the words, he tries to return the hug with warmth. It’s a very nice hug, and Pamela’s scent reminds him of the spiced vanilla drink Anna snuck up to share with him on rare winter nights, after their parents went to bed.

“Thank you. And thank you for coming to see me.”

She hums, patting his back, and then draws away to look at him, lightly touching his cheek.

“Don’t worry, Castiel,” she says quietly, smile kind. “You’ll see plenty of me, in the future.”

He’s not sure how she could possibly know that, but he hopes she’s right.

Abruptly, she smirks, suddenly inhaling deep.

“Mm,” she says, much louder, the laughter in her eyes unmistakable. “Forget about lunch, though, _you_ smell good enough to eat-”

“ _Pam,_ ” Dean snaps. “Too far. You’re making him uncomfortable.”

She really isn’t; Cas recognizes that Pamela is being playful, and he’s surprised that Dean, who’s known her for much longer, can’t tell.

“It’s fine,” Cas says quickly, smiling back at her. “Besides, no one’s ever told me my scent was nice, before.”

“Well, that’s not right,” Pamela says, stepping back and giving Dean a look Cas can’t quite interpret. “It’s more than nice, angel.”

Even if it’s made out of pity, Cas appreciates the compliment, and he’s about to say so-

But then he glances to Dean, and for some reason, Dean looks crestfallen.

Cas’s words dry up.

He and Dean look at each other for a moment, Dean some combination of guilty and wounded, and Kate nudges Cas aside to get a hug from Pamela, too.

“Little wolf!” Pamela exclaims, delighted. “Isn’t this a nice surprise?”

Kate huffs, but embraces Pamela, undeterred.

“It is, but I grew out of that ten years ago, people.”

Pamela winks at Cas over Kate’s shoulder, and he quickly looks away from Dean.

“Let’s just say she was a bitey little thing.”

“ _Ten years,_ ” Kate repeats, and Pamela laughs.

“Oh, yes. You learned to use your words instead of your teeth, and now you’re the most reasonable person in the castle.”

Kate draws away, rolling her eyes fondly.

“Well, I wouldn’t go _that_ far.”

Pamela waves a hand.

“Anyway. You sticking around to help Castiel decide?”

“Decide what?” Cas asks, still unsettled, and Pamela slings an arm across Kate’s shoulders, nodding toward Dean.

“Ask him.”

Dean shrugs, hoisting the bundles in his arms a little higher.

“I . . . well, I thought — you might want some more stuff. Maybe even some — some dresses, this time, if you wanted.”

Cas blinks.

“I don’t know where I’d wear a dress. Certainly, it seems to be a problem when I do.”

Dean’s expression turns pained, and he suddenly pivots, starting to set down his burdens.

“I — maybe, but — even if it’s just to garden, or whatever — if you like ‘em, you should have them.”

“Oh.” Cas hesitates. “Gardening is difficult in a dress, though. I prefer pants for that.”

Dean’s back is tense as he carefully arranges the items by the bed.

“Makes sense,” he mumbles. “It’s up to you, then. You guys can just — eat lunch, too, if you don’t, uh. If you don’t want anything.”

Bemused, and a little unnerved by Dean’s mood, Cas considers this.

“Nightgowns,” he finally says. “The sleep pants aren’t as comfortable to actually sleep in. I often end up taking them off, during the night.”

Dean’s shoulders draw up.

“O-oh. I mean — you know. If that’s — well, that’s, uh, cool. But — yeah, if you — nightgowns. Sounds — good.”

Pamela and Kate exchange amused looks, though Cas is becoming increasingly concerned for Dean.

“If that’s okay,” he agrees cautiously, and Dean’s head bobs, though he doesn’t appear to be doing anything anymore, hunched over and facing away, still.

“Yeah, of course. Whatever you want. As many as you want, actually. We’ll, uh. Put another armoire in here, if you need it.”

“Well, _that_ shouldn’t be necessary,” Cas protests. “But — a few would be nice.”

Kate cocks her head, smiling at him.

“You want a consult, or should I head out?”

He hesitates. Pamela is here, and he doesn’t want to keep Kate, if she’s busy, but he likes the idea of having extra input, especially since Dean is unlikely to provide any.

“Why don’t you stick around, if you can?” Pamela interjects, squeezing Kate’s shoulders. “Maybe you can help me talk him into something exciting.”

Kate laughs.

“I’d love to.”

Honestly, Cas thinks new nightgowns are plenty exciting on their own, but he’s curious to know what she means, anyway.

“There’s lunch, Dean, if you’re hungry,” Cas offers, and at last, Dean straightens, turning around.

His face is red.

“Yeah? Thanks. I, uh. I might do that, while I wait.”

“We’ll try to hurry-”

“No, no — take your time,” he says hastily. “I’ve got all day, if you want — don’t worry about me.”

“I don’t think Pamela has all day,” Cas points out, and Dean sighs.

“Cas,” he says, in a tone so gruff Cas inexplicably wants to smile.

He shrugs instead.

“Alright.”

Dean sighs and shuffles over toward the table, uncovering one of the trays.

“Fantastic,” Pamela murmurs, and then carelessly starts flicking her jacket buttons open, shrugging out of it. Her hair is up today, escaped tendrils curling prettily around her jaw, and though the skirts of her dress are what might be called a demure lavender, under ordinary circumstances, the bodice is an intricate black lace that leaves her shoulders partly bare and her skin perfectly visible through the pattern.

Cas gapes.

“But — your navel,” he stutters out, staring at it, unmistakable through the lace, and Dean’s head sharply whips around, hand freezing over a croissant.

“Are you _kidding_ m-”

“We all have one,” Pamela points out jauntily, settling gracefully at the edge of the bed. “Well, most of us.”

An incredibly sour scent tickles at Cas’s nose, like burnt woods, and Cas can’t help but make a face.

Kate coughs.

“Have an apple wedge, Dean. They’re fresh.”

Dean scowls, opening his mouth.

Then he shuts it, sullenly taking a seat and reaching for an apple wedge.

“So! Nightgowns,” Pamela muses, expression sunny. “I _did_ just get in a gorgeous blue silk.”

Cas tears his attention away from Dean and slowly settles on the bed beside her, undeniably intrigued.

“Is it soft?”

“The softest,” Pamela confirms, gesturing Kate to sit on her other side. “Like water over skin.”

“It sounds nice."

Pamela looks satisfied, leaning forward a little to tug one of the bags toward her.

“Good, because now that I know it’s nightgowns you’re after, that’s what one of them is going to be.”

Cas, of course, isn’t about to argue.

Once Dean’s finished eating and Pamela’s made him wash his hands, she tasks him with bringing the samples over, which he does with a suspicious lack of complaint.

“A lot of these were for actual clothing,” she explains, “But I thought you might want to treat yourself to some new drawers, so a few of them might work well for nightgowns. Bring that eggshell cotton, Dean,” she instructs, and Dean gives the pile on the floor a helpless look.

“Uh.”

“It’s like a light, matte white with slight yellow-green undertones.”

Cas squints at the three different whites in the group, a little amazed that she can tell a difference.

Dean grimaces.

“Could you be more specific, please?”

“Not really,” Pamela returns breezily. “Kate, you mind helping him out?”

Kate raises her brows, and Pamela winks.

“Oh, sure. The . . . eggshell.” With a hum, Kate pushes off the bed and crouches beside Dean.

If Cas didn’t know any better, he’d almost say she chooses a white cloth at random.

She offers the large swatch to Pamela, settling back on the bed with a grin.

“Here you go! Eggshell white.”

“Mm, just what I wanted. Thank you, Kate.”

On the floor, Dean looks incredibly vexed.

“How the hell can you tell the difference?”

The pair exchange blank looks.

“Oh, you know — isn’t it obvious?”

Dean scowls, and once again, Cas gets a strange impulse to smile.

And when Dean’s eyes flick to his, the scowl on his face abruptly softening — Cas realizes he _is_ smiling.

That slight shift, Dean’s irritation smoothing, simply makes his smile grow.

Pamela clears her throat.

“How does this one feel, Castiel?”

It’s a struggle to look away — especially with Dean looking back at him like that, green eyes searching — but Cas manages, reaching for the white cotton.

Surprise overtakes him.

“It feels like the sheets,” he blurts out, instinctively grasping, and Kate laughs.

“They’re really soft, aren’t they?”

“Yes. When I first arrived, I thought — I wanted nightgowns made of them.”

“Hm.” Pamela twists slightly, giving the bed behind her a thoughtful look. “Well, if you want me to take the topsheet, I can certainly do that.”

Cas can’t help a small laugh.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” he assures her. “Though — I admit, I’ve thought about doing it myself.”

“Uh, if you really want to, you can,” Dean interjects, rubbing the back of his neck. “Hell, I can have the laundry send up a brand new set, even. As many as you want.”

Cas shakes his head, patting the swatch in hand.

“This is more than adequate. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Yeah?” Dean looks considering. “And you really want nightgowns? Don’t they . . . bunch?”

Cas lifts his shoulders.

“They can, but pants bunch and twist, as well, and I think it’s worse.”

Dean nods slowly.

“Huh. Makes sense. I guess I never really thought about it.”

“Well . . .” Cas pauses, unsure. “Why don’t you try one?”

Dean’s brows fly up.

“ _Me_?”

“Yes?” Winchester is a wealthy kingdom; Cas assumes that, if they can afford to purchase extravagant wardrobes for him, they should be able to afford it for Dean, as well. “They’re very comfortable.”

“Uh, sure, but I’m a-” Dean abruptly stops, then, looking down. “Yeah. Okay. Pam, get me one of the magic sheet nightgowns like Cas.”

Cas frowns at him. Kate and Pamela are staring openmouthed beside him, clearly appalled by Dean’s manners.

“Please. If you would,” he adds pointedly, and Dean rolls his eyes, color in his cheeks.

“Right. Please and thank you, Pam.”

Pamela studies Dean for a moment, and then she smiles.

“It’d be my pleasure.” She tilts her head. “I think you’ll be very happy you gave it a chance.”

Dean shrugs, shifting a little where he’s still crouched on the floor.

“We’ll see. Maybe Cas just has weird taste.”

“I don’t-” Cas starts, just as Kate mutters, “He does seem to,” and he stops to look at her, a little hurt.

“Oh.”

Quickly, Pamela’s hand settles above his knee, giving it a comforting squeeze.

“She’s just teasing, Castiel,” she assures him quietly. “But not you. You have fine taste. Don’t doubt yourself.”

“She’s right. I was just making fun of Dean,” Kate agrees hastily, and Dean’s head whips up.

“Wait, what? How? What did she say?”

Pamela shakes her head.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, Dean. Now hand me that pale blue lace.”

He looks ready to protest, but after a moment, turns to survey the pile.

Then he stiffens.

“Uh.”

“Yes, that’s the one,” she confirms, though he hasn’t picked anything up. If Cas isn’t mistaken, she’s referring to-

“But it’s transparent.” He flicks a wary glance toward Pamela’s navel. As becoming as the bodice is on her, Cas has not been similarly blessed, and one of the greatest merits to his clothing is that it _hides_ his body.

Hand hovering over the blue fabric, Dean swallows.

“Yeah. That, uh. Doesn’t seem . . . practical. If he’s just gonna be sleeping in it.”

“It’s very nice,” Cas manages, “But I’m inclined to agree.”

Pamela hums, a slow, crafty smile crossing her face.

“Well, we’ll see. If nothing else — you probably need a new pair of drawers, don’t you?”

Dean chokes a little, at that, but while Cas is not about to wear a completely see-through nightgown . . .

The lace _is_ beautiful — they could at least _trim_ a more respectable pair of drawers with it, couldn’t they?

“So, uh. It’s a little early, but — why don’t you finish your lunch, and then maybe we can go on and head out? If you want?”

Dean failed to leave with Pamela and Kate, a moment ago, and Cas can’t deny that he’d been hoping for this.

“If you don’t mind,” he says cautiously, and Dean quickly shakes his head.

“No. Whatever you want is fine with me.”

“Alright. I’ll hurry.” He crosses over to the table, taking a seat, and after a moment, Dean gestures to the one across from him.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

“Not at all.” Mostly, Cas is just relieved Dean will be the one to take him riding, and down to his garden — at least for today.

He uncovers his lunch tray, struggling not to watch Dean, like he wants to.

“I wasn’t expecting to see Pamela,” he eventually says, not quite brave enough to ask his real question, and takes a small bite of cheese and croissant to calm himself.

Dean shrugs.

“Well, like I said. Thought you might want some new stuff. And, you know. Never hurts to see a friendly face. We didn’t run into her at the festival.”

He doesn’t look at Cas while he says it, though Cas has deemed it appropriate to look at Dean while he’s speaking.

“That was probably the best part,” he says softly. “Though I appreciate the new clothes.”

Dean cracks a smile, relaxing in his chair a little.

“Not like I’m not getting something out of it, too.”

“I told you they were comfortable.”

“Yeah, but you also like _gardening._ ”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Like I said, Cas. Weird taste.”

Cas considers this.

“Well. Not always, apparently.”

“Not always,” Dean agrees, finally looking at him, smile crooked. “Weird’s not the same as bad, anyway. And, you know — the garden’s starting to look like something. That’s cool.”

Cas thinks so, too. He’s excited about it.

However—

“It’s still early,” he points out. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

“Yeah.” Dean hesitates. “I, uh. I look forward to it.”

Like he’ll be there to see; like they _both_ will.

“You’ll be the one to sit with me, then? In the future?”

Dean’s gaze drops.

“I mean, if that’s what you want. It’s okay if you’d rather have Kate or somebody, though. So long as we’re careful, we can probably get away with it.”

Cas doesn’t know what to say. He isn’t sure what answer Dean wants — still doesn’t understand where the question is coming from, after all this time.

“I . . . wouldn’t want to cause trouble.”

Cas swears Dean looks _disappointed._

“It wouldn’t be. If that’s what you want, I’ll figure it out.”

It really isn’t. Some other time, it might have been, but Cas still has his suspicions about Dean, about how Dean can be, and he thought, before the festival, Dean might still prove him right.

And if he thinks about not seeing Dean, anymore -

“I’d rather it be you,” he says quietly, very carefully selecting a browning apple wedge from the plate. “If that’s alright.”

For a long, terrible moment, Dean doesn’t answer.

But then:

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “More than. Thanks, Cas.”

Cas isn’t sure what he’s being thanked for.

“Of course,” he says anyway. “And, uh. Thank you. For bringing Pamela, today. That was — I appreciated it. Very much.”

“Yeah?” Dean looks at him, intent. “Good, that’s — that’s good. I’m glad.”

“Me, too,” Cas offers, somewhat at a loss, and Dean smiles slightly.

They watch each other for a moment, and then Dean takes a deep breath.

“You know — she was right. Pamela, I mean. About, uh — about your scent. It’s really nice, Cas. Thought so since we met.”

Cas blinks, stunned.

And suddenly, he remembers being exhausted, remembers having spent the night squinting at his needle and thread and trying to wrap his head around what the morning would bring; remembers walking down the front steps to where Dean was waiting, and baring his throat — just as he’d been told to.

Remembers his utter confusion when -

_Thank you, you — you smell very nice._

“I forgot,” he says, startled, and Dean shrugs, clearly well-aware of what Cas is talking about.

“Don’t know why you’d remember. Must have been — well, a really shitty day for you.”

“It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be,” Cas says honestly.

Certainly, it wasn’t as bad as some of the ones that followed.

Dean tenses a little.

“Yeah, that — that had been the idea,” he mumbles. “Anyway — you should eat. I’ll shut up.”

Slowly, Cas nods.

“It’s fine. And — thank you for saying so. You smell very nice, too,” he adds, though he, too, has said it before.

There’s a pause, and then Dean looks at him, wry.

“So you said, Cas. I gotta be honest, I didn’t really believe you.”

“It was the truth,” Cas protests, and Dean lifts a brow.

“What you said after it definitely wasn’t.”

Cas hesitates.

“No,” he admits, but Dean doesn’t look offended so much as amused.

“Thought so.”

“It’s true now, though,” Cas says, looking down at his plate. “I’m glad you’ll still be the one to take me out, Dean.”

There’s a stunned sort of silence, at that.

“Oh.”

Cas waits, but nothing follows, so he quickly finishes his lunch.

Dean starts making random chatter again, once they’re riding across the grounds, and though the early start means they go for longer, and Cas spends an extra hour-and-a-half in the garden-

Cas sees no reason to complain.

A mere week later, Pamela returns, Dean trailing behind her with boxes of clothing stacked in his arms.

Cas is never, ever going to wear the lace nightgown — just trying it on behind the screen makes him feel like he’s committed a host of egregious, unspeakable sins — but it’s beautiful enough that he’s excited to see it in his armoire, anyway.

(The matching drawers, of course, are a different story. They’re not _that_ impractical, after all.)

Anyway, he’s pulling one of the soft, supposedly-eggshell-colored cotton ones over his head when he hears a sound of awe from the other side of the screen, unmistakably coming from Dean.

He pauses, listening.

“Looks better than I thought it would,” Pamela remarks approvingly, and Dean huffs.

“Who gives a shit how it _looks_? It’s freakin’ comfortable. It’s like I’m wrapped in hugs!”

Something warm blossoms in Cas’s chest; he can’t resist, poking his head around the screen, and that warm feeling seems to pulse.

Dean is patting the front of the nightgown with an undeniably satisfied air, delight plain in his face. What’s more, the loose white gown _does_ look nice on him, somehow makes him look softer, even a little boyish, put together with the smile he’s wearing.

Cas has the stray thought that he wouldn’t mind wrapping Dean in a hug, like that, and he ducks back behind the screen.

Charlie’s regular hugs are warping his perspective, no doubt.

“It is very comfortable,” he manages. “Thank you, Pamela.”

“My pleasure, Castiel,” she calls, and then, after a pause: “But if you _really_ want to express your gratitude, you’ll put on the blue lace one and let me have a look-”

There’s a strangled, vaguely upset noise from Dean, which is understandable.

“I don’t think either of you would appreciate that,” Cas calls back, by way of agreement. “Even with it on, you can still see _everything._ ”

There’s a long silence.

And then, for some reason, Pamela bursts into laughter.

“Cas. Do you, uh. Do you ever get — lonely?”

Cas pauses, watering can tilting back too far and halting the shower. He quickly readjusts it.

“Not really.” He misses Anna quite often, and sometimes he starts feeling a little cloistered — usually on the days Dean doesn’t take him out and Sam and Charlie don’t visit — but he has more company now than he ever did in New Eden.

Dean frowns at him, hovering off to the side, hands in his pockets.

“Dude, seriously? I’m practically the only other human being you see. And most of the time, you’re stuck in your bedroom. How are you not going crazy?”

Sam and Charlie still visit him at least twice a week, but Dean doesn’t know that.

“I could be,” Cas points out, squinting down at the burgeoning yellow rosebush. He’s still not sure how much water is enough, or what’s too much. He doesn’t want to waste it; he already feels bad for whoever has to prepare the big tanks of it for him to fill the can with.

“What?”

“I could be going crazy,” he clarifies. “I’m not sure how I’d know.”

Dean’s frown deepens.

“You — I — shit. You seem norm—well. You seem fine, to me.”

Cas lifts a brow.

“I don’t seem normal?”

“Uh. Well, _no_ , but — you never really did.”

There’s a thought; it’s entirely possible Cas went mad in New Eden, well before he came here.

“Then if I am crazy, it’s probably not a result of my isolation.”

“Oh. Huh.” Dean sounds disturbed, and Cas tries not to smile.

Which — things like that make him wonder if maybe he _is_ crazy. If smiling at Dean’s expressiveness were the worst of it, he probably wouldn’t worry, but it’s not.

No, Cas wants to smile at many things, lately, and he thinks about things he didn’t used to, things he probably shouldn’t, and all of it has to do with Dean.

“I think I was lonely, before,” he admits, and Dean looks guilty.

“When you first got here?”

“What? No. Before I came here.”

“Dude, that would mean you’re _less_ lonely, here. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Cas steps to the side, moving onto the white rosebush.

He doesn’t fail to notice the way Dean automatically shuffles after him.

“Well, I am.”

“Cas, we trap you in your bedchamber and I take you out for a few hours a few times a week. Kate or one of the maids says ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ a couple times a day. For you to be less lonely here, that’d mean you spent all your time — I don’t know, locked in an _attic,_ before.”

Cas grimaces. As it was, he spent too much time in the attic, even though he usually worked all day. He’s not sure he’d have survived that kind of confinement.

“I didn’t. I told you, I worked. But I worked by myself. And I dined by myself.”

“Oh.” Dean hesitates. “What about the rest of the time?”

Cas is tempted to tell him he and Anna usually managed to steal a half-hour or so every now and then to gossip and complain, but he can’t quite bring himself to. Part of him doesn’t want to tell Dean, not about her or the time before he came here.

“I worked most of the time,” is all he says. “And you spend more than a few hours with me — and rarely is it only a few times a week.”

“What? No, I don’t.”

Cas tilts his head.

“I don’t see Kate most evenings because I send for dinner too late.”

“Well, we start late.”

“By your standards, perhaps. It’s still afternoon, most days.”

Dean’s eyes narrow, and he purses his lips.

“Are you complainin’, Cas?”

Cas rights his watering can, turning fully to face Dean.

“No,” he says simply. “I enjoy our time together. I wouldn’t mind if we had more of it.”

Seconds tick by. Dean stares, eyes a little wide, but he doesn’t say anything, and eventually Cas decides he isn’t going to. He goes back to watering the bush.

“Sorry,” Dean says, what must be a full minute later. “I don’t — I’ve got other stuff, during the day, that I can’t—"

Cas lifts a hand.

“I assume. I’m surprised you can spare the time you do.”

“Uh. Well, it — it’s not like it’s a _hardship_ for me, you know, I — I kinda enjoy it, too.” He clears his throat, and Cas sees him shift in his periphery. “Now that I know you’re not planning my untimely demise, and all.”

Privately, Cas thinks Dean deserved any and all anxiety he felt, given what Cas was going through, but perhaps that may be petty.

Besides — the way Dean says it, Cas is fairly certain he means it, and the idea that Dean likes his company, too, warms him more than he can say.

They’re quiet for a spell, Dean subtly following him around the garden as he works. The sky is becoming threaded through with pink by the time he hears Dean take a breath to speak.

“Who’d you say goodbye to? In New Eden, I mean. When we picked you up.”

He sounds almost — nervous. Cas can’t fathom why.

“My garden,” he answers honestly.

Dean’s silent for a few seconds.

And then:

“Your _garden_? You said goodbye to your _garden_?”

Cas shrugs.

“There was nothing else to say goodbye to.”

“What about _people_?”

“I spent more time in the garden than I did with other people,” Cas point out, a little defiant. “Maybe I couldn’t grow exactly what I wanted, but it was the most fulfilling work I did. It was — one of my few comforts.”

“So you seriously like gardening this much?”

“Should I not?”

For some reason, Dean laughs, though he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Okay. So — what about your parents? What happened to them?”

Cas shoots him a confused frown.

“You met them. My father answered the door.”

“Oh. I — that’s what I _thought,_ but you barely looked at them when you left.”

“I barely looked at them when I lived there. And vice versa.”

Dean nods, though he looks troubled.

“So you weren’t, uh. Close?”

Cas shakes his head.

“No. Perhaps we could have been, if circumstances were different, but given what I was . . .”

“What you were?”

Cas glances at him, a little self-conscious and irritated because of it.

“Yes, Dean, what I am. In any case, I wouldn’t worry about it. Given that I’ll never see them again, it’s better if I don’t really want to.”

Dean’s quiet a moment. Then:

“Jesus,” he mumbles. “That’s pretty fucked up, man.”

Cas purses his lips.

“Your father won’t let you have a wife — a _mate._ Most people would consider _that_ unnatural, and beyond cruel.”

For a moment, Dean looks surprised — and then he snorts.

“Know what, Cas? You’re not wrong.” He shakes his head. “I guess we’re both fucked.”

Cas _should,_ but he can’t help himself.

He laughs, because it’s vulgar and depressingly true and thus, bizarrely funny, and when Dean gives him a sly, pleased look, he laughs some more — because that look makes some terrible, foolish part of him _happy._

Dean wasn’t lying when he said he enjoyed spending time with Cas, but still, it’s not a big deal. Dean’s an easygoing dude, and he likes people, and now that he’s not preoccupied with worry over what Cas’s evil plans are, he can acknowledge that Cas is really — he’s — well, he’s not bad company.

And since Cas _did_ turn out to not have any evil plans, and Dean’s attitude toward him _did_ turn out to be kind of unforgivably shitty, and Cas, for whatever reason, _is_ still willing to see him — well, the only thing for it is to try and make things up to him, anyway, just like Kate said.

It is strictly because of that last thing that Dean sends careful instructions to the kitchens one morning, two weeks after the festival, and shows up at Cas’s door the same evening bearing a loaded picnic basket.

“Hello, Dean.” Cas cants his head, squinting. “Why do you have a basket?”

“’Cause it’s got food in it.”

“Oh.” Cas nods. “Did you miss lunch?”

“ _No,_ and it’s not lunch, Cas, it’s dinner. For both of us.”

“Oh.” Cas’s grip on the door seems to tighten. “We don’t usually eat together.”

Dean shrugs, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious.

“I mean, we don’t have to—"

“We can.” Cas nods shortly. “We both need to eat. That was practical of you, Dean.”

“Uh. Thanks.” Dean shifts the basket on his arm. “Actually, I was thinkin’, you know, you’re pretty good at riding, now — they really don’t even count as lessons, these days — maybe we could go a little farther out? Find somewhere with a — with a view, or something. Put a blanket down. Eat. Look at all the . . . uh. Nature.”

Cas’s brow dips.

“But that’s — you want to have a picnic?”

“Uh. Yeah, why not? Seems like a good day to do it.”

“I’m sure it is.” Cas nods, weirdly serious. “Alright. I’m looking forward to it.”

There’s a giddy little frisson of warmth at that, and Dean coughs into his free hand.

“Yeah? Good. Let’s get goin’, then.”

Cas nods again, stepping out and shutting the door before starting toward the stairs. Fighting a dumb impulse to smile, Dean follows.

Once they’ve mounted and Dean’s affixed the basket to the saddle as best he can, he leads them well past their usual practice ground, up the sloping hill toward the mouth of the woods. The path forks, and they take a left, heading for a cool place to the West with a sort of partial cliff that has a great view of the city and the horizon.

“This is a nice view,” Cas remarks, as soon as they clear the trees, and Dean tries not to feel smug.

“Yeah, it’s not bad. Sammy and I ride up here to sit and drink, sometimes.”

Cas smiles slightly.

“That sounds nice.”

Dean shrugs.

“Didn’t bring any booze with me this time, since you said you didn’t like it.” He smirks. “Brought plenty of grape juice, though.”

Cas side-eyes him a little, but Dean swears he catches a waft of something bright and sweet in his scent, and he’s pretty sure Cas is pleased.

Which is good. Penance is less effective if the person it’s supposed to benefit is indifferent.

Dean carefully unpacks everything, insisting on serving it out, as well — it only seems fair, given that he’s trying to express how sorry he is and reassure Cas through action that things are, you know, cool now — and he even politely doesn’t tell Cas to stop staring while he does it. He figures it probably just wasn’t considered rude in New Eden, in which case, he doesn’t mind so much. Besides, he _is_ practically the only person Cas sees, so maybe it’s an instinctive thing Cas is doing, or something.

No big deal.

They eat in silence for a little while, and Cas turns his attention to his meal, though the breeze keeps sending his scent curling Dean’s way, threaded through with that same undercurrent of contentedness. Dean’s happy to just sit and enjoy it, either way. The last thing he wants to do is stick his foot in his mouth and ruin Cas’s — well, ruin all this effort.

He doesn’t realize he keeps glancing over at Cas, just to make sure, until he finds Cas looking back.

“What happened to the portrait?” Cas asks, and Dean fumbles his fork.

“The portrait?”

“From the festival.”

Obviously. Dean knew what portrait he was talking about, but Dean kind of already had it framed and tucked it away in the back of his armoire. He would have given it to Cas, but then he’d thought, what if he fails to find a way out of this situation? If he and Cas have to do this thing, and Cas ends up going to the Gardens -

Dean just thought, even if he can’t get Cas’s kids to _see_ him, he could at least show them that.

Anyway, he’s hoping it will never, ever come to that, but — it still seemed like a good idea to hang onto it.

Just in case.

“Oh. I think Charlie still has it.”

“Oh.”

“Why? Did you, uh. Want it?”

Cas hesitates, then shakes his head.

“No. I don’t know what I’d do with it.” He shrugs, looking back down. “I just wondered.”

“Oh. I’ll, uh. I’ll ask her,” he lies, and Cas nods.

“Alright.”

He looks a little too contemplative for Dean’s liking, so Dean hastily changes the subject.

“So you, uh, you had fun? At the festival?”

“I think anyone would have,” Cas points out. “But yes, I had a lot of fun.”

Dean nods.

“Well, it happens every year. We had to cut it short because Tara’s a dick, but next time — you know, it goes practically into the early morning. We could, uh, stay out all night, if we wanted.”

If anything, that makes Cas look _sad._

“I don’t know if I’ll be here next time.”

_Right,_ Dean thinks, scowling down at his plate.

“Well, that’s what I’m planning on.”

“Really?” Cas sounds unnervingly hopeful. “Have you thought of a, um, a solution?”

“Well — well, _no,_ but it hasn’t been that long.” Dean grimaces. “I’ll figure _something_ out. I have to.”

“It’s not your fault if you can’t. It seems like a rather impossible situation.”

“So? There’s gotta be some way. I just haven’t thought of it yet.” He lifts his fork toward Cas, warning. “But I will.”

“If you say so.”

“Dude, try to sound a little more doubtful.”

Cas frowns.

“I’m not sure I c—"

“I was being _sarcastic._ ”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Dean huffs.

“No, you’re not. You think I’m full of shit, and that’s fine. But you’ll see,” he adds, darkly confident.

“Alright.”

A moment later, Dean gets another wave of _happy_ scent, which is just — _baffling._ Cas is just sitting there, calmly tucking into his macaroni salad, and part of Dean wonders if he’s imagining it.

“How’s the macaroni?” he asks, suspicious. After a moment of thoughtful chewing, Cas smiles, a slight, secretive thing that’s mostly in the eyes, and somehow it makes Dean glad he’s sitting down, or else his knees might be feeling a little weak over it.

“Good. Thank you, Dean,” he adds, all low, rough sincerity, and Dean nods instead of trying to form any kind of normal response.

Cas might end up killing him, after all — just not in the way Dean expected.

“Dude, can’t I just have someone else finish weeding _for_ you?”

Cas ignores Dean, carefully gripping the offending plant by the roots and tugging. Obviously, he did not at any time _plant_ weeds, and yet they plague nearly every bed in his garden, at least occasionally.

“No. It’s my garden, I’m pulling the weeds.”

“But I’m _starving_. I missed lunch for a stupid council meeting over hunting regulations.”

“That’s not my problem,” Cas says mildly, and Dean huffs.

“What about tomorrow? I may know fuck-all about gardening, but I’m pretty sure the weeds will still be there tomorrow.”

Cas shoots him a dirty look.

“If you want dinner sooner, then _help_ me.”

Green eyes blink back at him, surprised.

“Thought it was _your_ garden.”

It’s not a protest.

Cas doesn’t blush.

“You spend just as much time in it as I do,” he says, matter-of-fact. “You might as well make yourself useful.”

Dean’s quiet for a moment.

“Huh.” He clears his throat, then shuffles forward, kneeling next to Cas. “Okay, then. Which ones are the weeds?”

Personally, Cas thinks it ends up taking a little longer, since he has to carefully supervise Dean and make sure he pulls them out by the _roots_ instead of breaking them off, but he was never in a hurry to begin with.

Anyway, the important thing is that Dean seems to grumble less about waiting when he’s _busy,_ so Cas tests the theory the next night by asking if he wants to fertilize the — perhaps oversized — circle of Forget-Me-Nots Cas planted around the fountain.

Dean shrugs and waits for instruction, and Cas once again loses time to watching him in his peripheral.

“I like the Forget-Me-Nots,” Dean declares a little while later, and Cas gives him a sidelong glance.

“You can’t even see them yet.”

Dean shrugs.

“Got a good feeling about them.” He pats the ground. “Little more TLC and they’ll spring right up.”

Cas rolls his eyes, although a part of him is pleased that Dean seems to so quickly be catching on to the true merits of gardening.

“Would you like to keep taking care of them, then?”

Dean raises a brow.

“You’ll let me?”

“I could use the help.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got a big-ass circle around the fountain. If I fuck it up, it’s gonna be obvious.”

Cas lifts his shoulders.

“Then don’t ‘fuck it up.’”

“Huh. Alright, guess I can give it a shot.” He smiles down at the dirt. “What color are they gonna be?”

Cas turns back to his hydrangeas, still just skinny green shoots bursting out of the dirt.

“Blue.”

Dean’s silent for a moment.

“Awesome,” he says, and Cas swears he can hear him smile.

Had you asked him, before the festival, Cas would have said a failed attempt at sexual intercourse would have spelled certain disaster for his and Dean’s already fragile relationship.

At this point, Cas isn’t sure it wasn’t the best outcome possible.

“Isn’t anyone upset about how much time you spend with me?” he asks over dinner one night, because dinner is a thing they sometimes eat together now, Dean tramping up the stairs after Cas is done gardening and plunking down at the table with some exaggerated remark about his hunger while Cas rings for a maid.

It’s not that he wants Dean to stop; that’s the _last_ thing he wants. Thrice more, Dean’s brought a basket of food and taken him to various locations on the castle grounds; and he’s been so free and unguarded in his conversation while Cas tools away in the garden, never perched far, that Cas is loath to say goodnight and eat his meal in silence.

But he _is_ growing worryingly possessive of that time — of that _company —_ and he wants to know how likely it is to stop abruptly, just so he knows to prepare himself.

Dean shakes his head, swallowing down an enormous mouthful of stew.

“Nah. I thought about it, and until I figure out how to get us out of this mess, the best thing I can do is spend as much time in your room as possible.”

Cas absorbs this news, trying to project a calm he doesn’t actually feel.

“Ah.” He clears his throat, twisting his spoon without filling it. “Why is that?”

Oblivious to his turmoil, Dean lifts his brows.

“C’mon. I start spending almost every evening in your bedchamber — what do you _think_ they’ll think I’m doing here?”

“I see.” Cas nods, stoically taking a bite of his own stew. “Very clever.”

Dean beams and returns his attention to his meal while Cas tries and fails to do the same.

It’s a good thing Dean is not doing what people will apparently think he’s doing, of that Cas is sure. Despite that sureness, the concept seems to stick in his brain, tugging at it in the most inconvenient of places and sending a false nervous response through the rest of his body.

It does that a lot, lately.

To be honest — Cas never really thought about marriage or mating. As soon as he presented, he understood well that it would not be an option for him, and in reality, he’d been alright with that. His parents’ authority was more than enough to deal with, never mind trading it in for an alpha's, and though Cas was _exhausted_ from his work more often than not — a part of him liked it. He liked feeling productive, and he even liked the solitude in it, the peace, the reprieve from others’ spite and judgment.

But he _was_ lonely. He recognizes that, now. Still — if he wanted for company, then he wanted to spend more time with his sister; he wanted his father’s rare smiles and his mother’s fussing, the way he remembered from when he was young, before he or Anna had presented.

No matter how lonely he was — not once did he think of mates.

And really, he still doesn’t, doesn’t think of bites or ceremonies or that double-edged sword of lifelong devotion and obligation.

But lately, he _does_ think of Dean. More specifically, he thinks about that night in Dean’s bed, Dean’s skin pressed overwhelmingly against his, Dean’s hands on him, the way Dean felt under his own — the way it felt to kiss him.

He thinks of it, and then he looks at Dean in the present, and he wants to touch him. Cas wants _Dean_ to touch _him._ He wants to lean back when Dean peers around his shoulder to see the new shoots of green and fragile buds, and he wants to crowd Dean against his bedchamber door when it’s time to say goodnight and kiss him for as long as he can get away with.

Sometimes, he thinks he even wants Dean to not leave at all. He wants Dean to crawl into bed with him like it’s a nest, and then he wants to lie there in the quiet and hold onto him and listen to him breathe, as if there were any kind of reason to do so.

He wants to not need a reason.

No, ever since the night of the festival, ever since Dean finally seemed to realize there was nothing to be afraid of, ever since they started having dinner and picnics and easy conversation, Dean’s smiles free and unburdened — touch has become like some kind of mad _craving,_ and Cas has no idea why.

He does know it’s probably inappropriate, though, so he keeps his hands to himself and pretends Dean is no more than a valued ally against his fate.

“Hey, Cas — can I ask you something?”

Cas glances back up, startled.

“What?”

“The, uh. The girl who sends you letters. Is she . . . were you . . .”

Puzzled by Dean’s apparent unease, Cas tilts his head.

“Was I what?”

Dean shrugs.

“I know you said you don’t really like talking about New Eden, but — I guess I assumed she was a — a bright spot.”

“Oh. Yes. The only one, as far as people went.”

Dean smiles a little, though he looks troubled.

“Is she . . . waiting for you? Out there?”

The question catches him off guard.

“I — no. No, I don’t think so. I don’t know why she would.”

Dean hesitates.

“If she, uh, loved you, enough to still be writing you — she could be?”

“I don’t know what that has to do with anything,” Cas says, a little confused. “Anna knows there’s no way out. It’s why she ran.”

Dean’s trepidation melts into surprise.

“It’s why she — wait, this isn’t the chick who was supposed to come with us in the first place, is it?”

Cas stills, realizing his indiscretion.

And then he decides it doesn’t matter.

If Dean can trust Cas not to harm him, and vice versa, then Cas should be able to trust him with this.

“It is,” he finally says. “You were supposed to have my sister.”

If anything, Dean looks _relieved._

“Your sister,” he repeats, straightening in his chair. “Your — so — that’s your _sister_ writing to you?”

“Yes?” There’s no one else it could be, though Cas supposes Dean wouldn’t know that.

Dean nods, very serious, and licks his lips.

“And that’s a — flesh and blood kind of sister? Not like some weird church sister you’re not actually related to?”

Cas squints at him.

“No. Anna is my blood sister. It was still our House’s turn, since your father didn’t take my mother, so they offered you her daughter instead.”

Dean nods, sobering a little.

“And when she ran — they offered us her son.”

Cas nods.

“Although I think they were surprised they got away with it.”

“Yeah? So they _did_ know it’d be a problem?”

Cas gives him a sharp look.

“I thought you said it wasn’t a problem.”

Dean shrugs.

“Not for _me,_ but the council thought you guys were trying to make fools of us. Wanted to send a demonstration and get someone else.”

The food in Cas’s stomach feels suddenly heavy, at that.

“Why didn’t they?”

“I didn’t want someone else,” Dean explains easily, and then freezes. “I mean — because I thought you were trying to kill me, I didn’t wanna just send you back home, I wanted to — to catch you out, and stuff. You know. Personal pride was at stake.”

“Oh.” Cas can’t help the frown. “You thought I was trying to kill you and you wanted me to _stay_?”

Dean swallows.

“It — it’s an alpha thing, okay? I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

Privately, Cas thinks of Sam, and he thinks that that _absolutely_ would not have been the boy’s response to the situation, which leads him to believe it is a Dean thing which _no one_ would understand.

He keeps his mouth shut.

“I see.” Dean narrows his eyes, and Cas hastily presses on. “How did you convince them to keep me?”

“Oh, well, that wasn’t _too_ hard. I just told ‘em you were the same as any other omega in New Eden, and it didn’t occur to them we’d think different.”

Cas laughs outright at that, and Dean looks taken aback.

“Dude, what?”

Cas lifts his brows.

“You told them the exact opposite of the truth.”

Dean frowns.

“No, I didn’t. You told me yourself — they made you wear _dresses_ because you’re an omega _._ Looks like they lumped you right in with the rest.”

Cas shakes his head.

“It’s true that I’m an omega before anything else, and I abide by those rules of decency. But I’m still a man, Dean. The two together make me an abomination. Believe me when I tell you my council was well aware of what they were inflicting on you.”

Dean stares at him, aghast.

“ _Inflicting?”_ he echoes, and Cas nods.

“My parents tried to object; they were afraid you’d be angry and kill us all.” His lip curls at the memory. “Of course, Malachi said someone from the capital was too depraved to care what they were bedding.”

“’What they were — _w_ _ho_ ,’” Dean corrects faintly, and Cas shakes his head.

“’What,’ Dean. Given the kindness that has been shown to me here — provided I don’t wear dresses — I assume the perspective in Lawrence is at least a little different. But New Eden considered me part of my mother’s punishment for avoiding her fate.”

“That wasn’t her fault!” Dean protests, appalled. “And how can a kid be a _punishment_?”

Cas hesitates.

“I — you should probably know,” he starts, albeit reluctantly. “Anna is my only sibling. And she was an omega, as well.”

Dean huffs, clearly still outraged.

“So?”

“So,” Cas says slowly. “My mother’s firstborn was an omega daughter.”

It takes Dean a moment.

“Not an alpha son,” he finally says.

Cas nods.

“I hope you won’t be disappointed if—"

He cuts off when Dean starts laughing.

“Son of a bitch, Cas,” he chuckles, leaning back. “Your council’s a bunch of dicks.”

“Uh. Well, yes, but—"

“Weren’t they worried we’d be _pissed_?”

“Some of them must have been,” Cas acknowledges. “I suppose the other houses must have protested, since it wasn’t their turn. Besides — they may have assumed you wouldn’t find out, and you’d just punish me.”

Dean’s laughter dies in an instant.

“No. No, we wouldn’t. We won’t,” he adds, scowling. “Even if I fuck this up and you end up having ten omega girls — you’ll be fine. I promise.”

Again, Cas doubts Dean’s power against his own council, but he holds his tongue.

“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Regrettably, Dean’s mood has clearly shifted. He stares at Cas unhappily.

“You — did they ever—"

He doesn’t finish, and Cas watches silently, waiting.

Dean’s eyes drop to the table.

“When you left,” he starts, barely more than a mumble. “The, uh. That night. I saw — when you were getting dressed, you turned around and . . .”

_Ah,_ Cas thinks. He was careless, in his distress.

This time, he’s the one to lower his gaze.

“Yes. Sorry. I’m aware it’s unbecoming, but I was never supposed to have a mate, so they didn’t know it would matter.”

“What? No — no, it — it _doesn’t_ matter, not for that reason, but — jesus, it must have hurt like hell, Cas _._ What — what _happened_?”

Cas contemplates his empty bowl for a long moment.

“I was whipped,” he says eventually, and hopes Dean will leave it at that.

Unfortunately, this _is_ Dean, and he doesn’t.

“Yeah, I kinda got that, Cas — I meant — why? Hell, _who?_ Is that something the council did?”

Cas shakes his head, a little resentful. This is not something he likes to think about. Certainly, this is something he never spoke of after the fact, and for good reason.

“No. My father did it.”

“Your _father_ —" Dean cuts off, and in Cas’s peripheral, he sees his fists clench.

He can already scent Dean’s anger, and he’s not excited to see if it worsens once Dean knows what he did.

He likes to think it won’t, likes to think Dean won’t care. He’s not going to hope Dean feels sorry for him — there’s no point to that, and he shouldn’t want it, besides — but he at least wants to believe Dean won’t judge him for it.

“There was a boy in town. One of the councilmen’s sons.” Cas stiffly folds his hands together at the edge of the table and continues, trying to be as succinct as possible. “My company is bad luck. Touching me, especially in certain contexts, was both forbidden and severely punishable, for both me and whomever might do so. Bear in mind, doing such things outside of a mating is illegal to begin with.”

The anger seems to increase tenfold. Cas wishes he could hold a napkin to his nose.

“What happened?” Dean asks quietly.

“He came back from a market trip to another town, inebriated. I was walking home from my field work.” Cas shrugs. “Given his remarks, I assume he saw me as an opportunity to circumvent the mating rule.”

Dean’s knuckles are white, stark against the table.

“Jesus Christ, Cas.”

“I was frightened.” Cas frowns at the table. “That wasn’t something I expected. No one would meet my eyes, if I ever happened to pass them, and I wouldn’t try. I wasn’t prepared for — _that_.”

“Shit, Cas — of _course_ not.”

Cas nods.

“So I handled it poorly, and his injuries were severe—" Dean straightens up, at that — “And when he was discovered and I told them what happened — they didn’t believe me.”

“Wait — what?”

“He lied. He said he was on his way home and I — I _attacked_ him.” Cas swallows, still bitter. “Anna was the only one who believed me. Everyone else — why would he try to do something like that with something like me? He was a well-liked, respectable boy. They couldn’t imagine he would demean himself in such a way.”

Dean is silent, and Cas waits, tense, bracing himself for some kind of reproach.

And then:

“I hope you left him with some fucking scars of his own,” Dean grits out.

Cas’s head snaps up, and he stares. Dean looks back at him, jaw tight and eyes expectant.

“Uh. Yes.” Cas hesitates. “I did. On his face — when I hit him. He, uh. He has one through his eyebrow. And on his cheek.” Dean looks increasingly satisfied as Cas speaks, so he continues. “He wore a sling for over a month. My wages went to cover his inability to work. My parents — my parents were furious.”

There’s a flicker of sadness, at that, but to Cas’s bewilderment, Dean _grins._

And then he reaches out, catching Cas’s hands in his own and thumbing over the callouses on his palms.

Cas is too startled to do anything but let him.

“Knew you had good hands,” Dean remarks softly, eyes crinkling at the corners. If Cas didn’t know any better, he’d say he looked — _smug._

“Thank you,” Cas says, at a loss, then hastily adds, “You, uh. You, also, have — your hands are good.”

Dean squeezes them, and Cas instinctively grips back. It makes him think of after the festival, of just _taking_ the kisses he wanted, of Dean giving him permission.

“Cas,” Dean says, and Cas takes a deep breath, trying to ground himself. “You know — you know no one’s ever going to hurt you again, right?”

_Not even you_?

Cas doesn’t say it, though, doesn’t think Dean would understand. He is beginning to worry, though, that Dean will leave scars of his own.

Because Cas doesn’t think about that day, that boy, very often at all.

He’s afraid, suddenly, that he’s going to think of Dean always.

“I know.”

Dean squeezes his hands a little tighter, and though he gently changes the subject, asking Cas to tell him about Anna, he doesn’t let go.

“What, um. What are the capital’s views on . . . recreational kissing?”

Charlie and Sam are so surprised they halt a silent battle of eye contact over the last tea cake just to look at him.

“What?”

Cas nonchalantly reaches for a knife and simply cuts it in half.

“Kissing. Not the, um, regular kind. The kind that happens in novels.”

Charlie’s brows climb, though her gaze flicks assessingly between the two halves. Apparently satisfied by their respective sizes, she scoops one up.

“Oh. _That_ kind of kissing. Well, Cas, we’re _pret_ -ty big fans, here in Lawrence.”

“I see. And — who is ‘we’? Is that just women? And omegas? Or . . .”

Sam coughs.

“No. Whether you like it or not is kind of an individual thing, but, um — all kinds of people do.”

“Even outside of intercourse?” he presses, and Sam sighs, taking an oddly forlorn bite of cake.

“Yeah, Cas. Sometimes _especially_ outside of intercourse.”

Well, that makes sense. An alpha might heartily disagree, but kissing appears to be the one unexpected merit to the process of intercourse, after all.

“Why do you a-ow!” Charlie yelps, glaring at Sam. “Dude, what the hell?”

Sam just gives her a meaningful look, and she rolls her eyes.

“Oh, grow up. He’s just asking about _kissing._ ”

“Right, except I’m pretty sure he’s actually asking about kissing and _Dean_ and I’m trying to enjoy food right now.”

“If Cas wants to know what kissing your brother is like, a _true_ friend would support him,” she retorts, though she glances over at Cas and winks.

Sam makes a face.

“Fine. Why do you want to know, Cas?”

“Well, actually, I’ve already kissed your brother,” Cas explains, and both of them fumble the cake in their hands.

“I’m sorry, _what_?” Charlie asks, leaning forward. “You did _what_?”

“I kissed Dean.”

“Are you sure it was kis—"

“I’m sure,” Cas says evenly. It was a very thorough kiss, based on what he’s seen in novels.

“Wow. Okay.” She cocks her head. “So . . . how was it?”

He shrugs, though he can feel his cheeks warm, just from thinking about it.

“Uh. It was — very nice.” He coughs. “But — what are the rules? For doing it?”

_Can I kiss him again?_

_Will he kiss me back?_

“Uh.” They exchange looks, and Charlie shrugs. “There aren’t a lot of rules, really. Don’t use tongue in public, don’t kiss anyone who doesn’t want you to kiss them, and don’t do it if you’re not enjoying it.”

“Alright.” That seems straightforward enough, but— “How do I tell if he wants to kiss me?

“Ooh. Well.” Charlie taps her chin, thoughtful. “Honestly? Dean’s usually pretty obvious—"

Cas’s heart sinks.

“Oh.”

“But sometimes he’s hard to read,” Sam interjects quickly. “Especially when he doesn’t _realize_ he wants to kiss someone.”

“Yup. I mean, that’s usually not a problem for him, but you guys have a _super_ weird thing going, so.”

“Then how am I supposed to know?”

Sam shrugs.

“You could ask him?”

Charlie nods.

“Sure, that’s one way to do it. Might be too embarrassed to kiss you right away, though. Actually — he might even run away, at first.”

Cas squints.

“I’d assume that meant he _didn’t_ want to kiss me.”

“Which is why it’s best to _ask,_ ” Sam repeats. “And — make sure _you_ actually want to, too, okay?”

Cas thinks about the kissing that has already happened, and gives Sam a doubtful look.

“Why would I not want to?”

Charlie snickers.

“Yeah, Sam, why wouldn’t he want to?”

Sam sighs.

“Right. Good luck, Cas.”

“Thank you.” Cas pauses, suddenly nervous. “When is the right time to ask?”

“Well —" Sam starts, and Charlie nudges him.

“When the mood strikes! When you’re like, ‘Damn, Dean,’ and you just wanna plant one on him.”

“Oh.” If Cas is understanding correctly — “But that’s all the time.”

Sam chokes on his last piece of cake, and Charlie claps him roughly on the back, grinning sunnily at Cas

“Then I guess you know what to do!”

Cas offers her a hesitant smile. He supposes he does.

The question is — will he have the nerve to do it?

Really, there’s no good explanation for why, when John announces they’ll be going away to Lord Such-and-such’s lodge for a weekend hunting party, Dean’s first instinct is to be _disappointed_.

He’s been at the castle for _months,_ spending day after day training, attending boring council meetings, and riding/gardening/eating meals with Cas, and he should be thrilled at the prospect of getting out and being active and doing something _different,_ especially since Sam and several of his friends are going along, too.

But he’s not.

No, when John tells him they’ll be leaving Friday morning, Dean is faintly crushed.

_Now?_ he wants to ask, but he doesn’t, because then he’d have to explain why right now is a particularly bad time, relative to other times, and for the life of him, he can’t.

It just seems grossly unfair, is all; it _seems_ like something here needs his urgent, devoted attention, and if Dean’s being totally honest, he has a sneaking suspicion that something is _Cas._

Which — that’s reasonable, isn’t? The reality is, he was shitty to Cas for months when he first got here, and it probably takes at least twice as long to make up for that kind of thing, and subjecting him to bad jokes during meals and trying to grow him some Forget-Me-Nots over the last month definitely doesn’t cut it.

He’d hate for his progress to backslide just because he has to go on a stupid hunting trip, is all.

Anyway, Dean’s gotten so used to that light, faintly sweet scent of contentedness that he’s more likely to notice if it’s _not_ there; and though he doesn’t kid himself Cas will be particularly disturbed if he goes away for three or four days, he still can’t quite bring himself to tell Cas until he absolutely has to.

Fortunately, Kevin brings him a letter Thursday afternoon, and there aren’t words for how relieved Dean feels, being able to offer something precious alongside the bad news.

Again, not that Cas will necessarily _think_ it’s bad news, but for some reason, every time Dean thinks of saying, “Hey, I’ve gotta leave for a few days,” he gets an acute sense of dread and clams right up.

So, yeah — he’ll just feel better if he has something to give Cas, at the same time.

As he’s walking up, though, he starts wondering if the letter will be quite enough — Dean’s given Cas several, at this point, and Cas has come to expect them, so even if the _letter_ makes him happy, nothing Dean’s actually _doing_ is — and by the time he’s to the door, he thinks he’s stumbled upon a truly _brilliant_ idea.

An idea that might make his dad and the council actually put him in the dungeon for a little while, if they found out, but a pretty fucking awesome idea nonetheless.

He raps swiftly at Cas’s door, equal parts nervous and excited, and it’s hardly any time before it opens.

“Hello, Dean.” Even though Cas’s smile is slight, there’s so much warmth in it Dean feels a little dumbstruck for a moment, unable to do anything but smile back.

Because Cas’s smiles are _all_ warm, these days. Cas doesn’t want him dead and Cas trusts him in his garden, trusts him to figure a way out of this mess for the two of them, and he smiles at Dean like Dean’s not an honest-to-god piece of shit who kidnapped him and then spent two months playing fucked up mind games because he was mildly delusional.

Who spent two months making his life even worse than it was before. And when Dean thinks about what Cas told him, about just how awful and unbearable it must have been, like a living form of torture—

Cas’s smiles are a fucking miracle, and all Dean wants to do now is be deserving of them.

Anyway, _l_ _ogically_ , Dean knows that ‘miracle’ means Cas probably did, in fact, lose his mind at some point since arriving here (or maybe even before, like he suggested), but the full, giddy feeling in his chest right now doesn’t give a fraction of a damn about logic. It takes Cas tilting his head and stepping back before Dean remembers to tear his eyes away and go inside.

“Hey, Cas,” he manages, shuffling past him and closing his eyes as he tries to compose himself. How _old_ is he? “How you doin’?”

“I’m well. And you?”

“Good. Uh. Well, kind of. See — I’ve gotta — but—" Dean grimaces, then turns, thrusting out the letter. “Got another one.”

Cas’s eyes light up, and he practically snatches it out of Dean’s hand.

“Thank you.”

“Sure.” Dean clears his throat. “Speaking of which — has she, uh. Mentioned any way to find her?”

Immediately, the light turns guarded.

“No,” Cas says slowly. “Why?”

“I just thought — if you wanted to, you know, write back? Maybe we could try and get it to her?”

Suspicion dissolves into surprise.

“Oh. Well . . . she mentioned a tavern in a place called Sioux Falls, last time.”

“Yeah? Just passing through, or if I had someone pay the owner, do you think . . .?”

Cas hesitates.

“She indicated she was familiar with those who worked there.”

Dean snaps his fingers.

“Bingo.”

“Do you really think you can get a letter to her?” Cas asks, hope unmistakable amid the doubt.

“No harm in trying. And if you’ve got the name of the tavern — yeah, Cas, odds are good.”

Cas nods.

“Alright.” It’s nearly a whisper. “I’ll write one.”

“Yeah.” Dean clears his throat. Now for the hard part. “I thought — if you do it tonight, I can send someone to pick it up in the morning, and maybe take it part of the way myself.”

At that, Cas’s eyes fly to meet his.

“You’re going somewhere?”

Guilt crowds in against him, and Dean nods.

“Yeah. Got a hunting engagement with some lords that I couldn’t get out of.”

Cas blinks.

“Why would you try?”

“Uh.” Dean swears he can _feel_ himself turning red. Trust Cas to ask awkward questions. “Just — just, you know, in case — I mean — I was really making progress with the Forget-Me-Nots, you know?”

Cas withdraws a little, alarm clear.

“How long will you be gone?”

“What? Oh, no, not — not a _long_ time, just three or four days, but — I mean, a lot can happen in a few days.”

“Oh.” He relaxes considerably. Dean decides not to read too much into it. “Uh. That’s true.”

“One of the maids will take you out, though. You won’t have to, uh, sit here waitin’ on me.”

Cas nods, studying him for a moment.

Abruptly, he glances down.

“Well, then you shouldn’t worry. I can handle the Forget-Me-Nots,” he adds, soft and wry, and in that moment, all Dean wants to do is kiss him.

And God, Dean’s wanted to kiss him since he first set _eyes_ on Cas, even more so once he’d _actually_ kissed him _—_ but — but right now, it’s almost like a _need._

He can’t help himself; he reaches for Cas’s hand, lightly squeezing.

“I’ll come see you as soon as I get back.”

For a moment, Cas just stares at their joined hands, and Dean is terrified he’s overstepped, that his reassurances are both unnecessary and embarrassingly revealing and Cas is never going to want his help with the Forget-Me-Nots ever again.

“I recommend a bath first,” Cas eventually says, dry. Still, he looks puzzled, and if Dean’s not mistaken, that’s a blush starting high on his cheeks.

Dean swallows and reluctantly lets go of Cas’s hand.

“I’ll think about it,” he jokes weakly, then nods toward the unopened envelope. “You should read that, and we should get going.”

Cas looks at him for a small, agonizing eternity, during which Dean swears his eyes wander to places on Dean’s face that can most accurately be described as ‘his mouth.’

(Wishful thinking. Right?)

“Alright.”

Cas turns away, heading for a chair to read his letter. Dean watches him, probably less discreetly than he thinks, and every time Cas smiles, he congratulates himself on not kissing him.

They’re hollow victories.

Cas’s nerves over kissing Dean seem to increase proportionate to his desire to do so, and by the time Dean’s been gone three days and Cas is jumping at every sound, eagerly anticipating the bell that will announce their return, he’s grimly confident the kissing will never happen again.

It certainly doesn’t help that, despite Charlie’s advice, Cas _can’t_ tell. Cas is at a loss as to how to identify whether something Dean says or does, or a way he looks at or fleetingly touches Cas, is an indication of _Dean’s_ openness to kissing or just another thing that makes _Cas_ want to kiss _him._

It feels impossible to tell, which makes it all the more terrifying. Cas — Cas _likes_ where he and Dean are at, is enjoying their routine more than he could have imagined possible, and he thinks he might actually be content to do it indefinitely.

Isn’t it foolish, then, to disrupt it with something as frivolous as potentially unwanted kisses?

Absolutely.

Cas still can’t stop thinking about it, though.

Anyway — he’s not sure why he’s so anxiously awaiting Dean’s arrival, but Dean said he’d come see Cas as soon as he got back, and since Dean often does things that he says he will, it seems reasonable to at least consider the possibility.

Of course, Cas has also spent three days puzzling over _why_ Dean would come to see him as soon as he got back — he couldn’t possibly want to go riding or sit in the garden right after a trip, commitment to Forget-Me-Nots notwithstanding — but in the event that he does, Cas wants to be ready.

Around seven o’clock, the bell rings, echoing throughout the castle grounds, and Cas hastily gets out of his chair and dresses. Then he mentally fights with himself for a few minutes before rushing into the bathroom to fill the tub.

It should be cool enough by the time Dean gets here — if he does get here. And if he doesn’t come, then Cas will take it himself, even though he just had one that afternoon.

But — since he _might_ —

Cas hovers outside the bathroom, anxiously monitoring the steam levels, and despite his preparation, the knock at his door still comes as a shock.

He smoothes his trousers, dashing a quick hand through his hair. Then he answers, reminding himself that it may just be a maid wanting to know why he hasn’t called for dinner yet.

It’s not.

“Hey, Cas.”

Cas tightens his grip on the door handle, staring a little. Dean is still dusty from the ride in, hands still gloved.

He must have literally come here _as soon as he got back._

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean sort of smiles.

“How’s it goin’?”

Cas takes a deep breath, smoothly stepping back and gesturing for Dean to come in.

“It’s going well. The Forget-Me-Nots survived your absence.”

Dean grins.

“What about y—" he starts, and then his smile falters, cheeks turning rosy around it. “Uh. Your other plants? How, uh, how’re they doin’?”

“They’re also well.”

“Oh, well, that’s good.”

“You were only gone three days.”

“So? A lot can happen in three days.”

Cas nods.

“Fair. But nothing did.”

“Well, okay. Good.” It’s said rather petulantly, but Dean’s still smiling.

_I did miss you, though._

Cas doesn’t say it.

“I . . . I thought you could — you could have a bath, still.”

Dean looks a little taken aback, though he lets out a chuckle.

“Ouch. Not a fan of travel grime, huh?”

It’s a struggle to keep a straight face. Cas wants to grin.

Why does he want to _smile_ so much?

“No. But you’d seemed insistent, so I thought I’d be ready.”

Dean straightens up at that, brows lifting.

“Wait — are you saying you _drew_ me one? Here?”

Cas frowns.

“Where else would I do it?”

“I thought you were telling me to go back to my room and wash up.”

Why on earth would Cas do that, when he’s so pleased Dean came in the first place?

“No. You said you’d come to see me — as soon as you got back.” Cas swallows, suddenly feeling shy. “You didn’t seem enthused about having a bath first, so I took matters into my own hands.”

Cas swears Dean’s eyes seem to twinkle.

“Well, okay, Cas, if it’s that important to you. Don’t want you sending me away when I just got here,” he adds, teasing, although there’s something in his eyes as he says it, intent and open and—

Cas hastily turns around, trying to forestall a blush.

“Just — in here.” He leads Dean to the bathing room, excruciatingly aware of his proximity behind him. He smells mostly of dirt and sweat and the general outdoors, but there’s a purer, cleaner base to it, one Cas would recognize anywhere by now.

He wants to put his arms around Dean and breathe it in.

“Take your time,” he says awkwardly, once Dean’s standing by the tub.

Dean smirks.

“Worried I won’t be thorough?”

Cas shrugs back.

“It’s a valid concern. There was that flowerbed you told me you’d weeded—"

Dean coughs, waving his hand.

“Right, whatever. You better go, or else my smell won’t be the only thing offending you.”

It takes a moment of blank staring for Cas to understand.

“Oh. Oh, yes, I, uh.” Cas clears his throat. “Although I’ve seen it before,” he adds under his breath, and then quickly backs out of the room and shuts the door behind him.

It’s ludicrous, the way he feels, knowing Dean will be bathing in _Cas’s_ bath. Is shedding his clothes right now, will be soaking in the same spot Cas was not five hours prior, bare as the day he was born.

(Or the day the the council sent Cas to his bedchamber.)

Cheeks burning, Cas moves to retrieve a set of pajamas from the wardrobe.

Although, really, he should have done it _before_ Dean got here, should have laid them out in the bathroom. Cas certainly can’t go in there _now,_ which means Dean will have to emerge unclothed, which is — well, it’s — it’s rather unfortunate, to think of.

He decides not to, awkwardly sitting at the edge of the bed and trying not to stare at the door while he waits.

Hopefully, Dean will stay after he’s done with his bath. Cas would like to hear about his hunting trip, after all. He’s not completely unfamiliar with the subject; he went hunting with his father before he presented, though he never cared for the killing part. He probably won’t care to hear about it from Dean, either, then.

He wants Dean to tell him anyway.

In fact, Cas wants a lot of things from Dean right now. He wants Dean damp from his bath, cozy in _Cas’s_ pajamas, and he wants Dean to stay for dinner and tell him about his trip and the people he saw and whether there’s any news of Anna, and then he wants to send for someone to clear the dishes away and when they’re gone, Cas wants Dean to stay _longer,_ wants him soft and sleepy in Cas’s enormous, fluffy bed, and then he wants him wide awake, wants him to do what he did the night of the festival, kiss Cas and wrap around him and cover him and touch him and—

The door opens.

“Cas? Uh. Don’t suppose you have some spare pajamas lying around? Or any clothes, really.”

Cas clears his throat, cheeks burning.

“Y-yes,” he stutters, clumsily lurching to his feet and averting his gaze as he snatches up the pajamas. He thrusts them out, gaze flickering guiltily between the buttons on the front and Dean’s flushed, bare chest. “Here.”

“Oh, awesome. Thanks.” Dean gingerly accepts them, shifting awkwardly. “S-sorry, maybe I should’ve used two towels—"

Cas takes a deep breath, shaking his head.

“It’s fine. It’s not that different from mine,” he lies, and Dean makes a face.

“You’re a hell of a lot leaner than I am, though. I should probably be embarrassed.”

Dean looks perfectly lean to Cas. Dean looks just like an alpha ought. Or a beta. Or an omega, even; anyone who happens to look like Dean should just consider themselves very blessed, regardless of their status, because Cas thinks Dean looks — perfect.

(Objectively speaking.)

“No. You should never be embarrassed. You’re very beautiful,” he adds quietly, and Dean sort of stares at him, jaw going slack.

The pajamas start to slip out of his grasp, and he hastily secures them.

“Uh. That — uh. Thanks? I don’t — I wouldn’t say that — but — but thanks. Yeah. Thanks.” Dean coughs. “You’re, uh. You know. You . . .”

Cas watches him, attention rapt, and waits.

Abruptly, Dean turns.

“Yeah, so, I’m just — I’ll get dressed. See you in a minute.”

The door shuts almost immediately after, and Cas shuffles back to the bed in something of a daze. His skin feels like it’s about to fling itself away from the rest of his body and somehow dance around the room without it.

Less than a minute later, Dean comes back out, cheeks red from the steam.

“Thanks for the loan.”

Cas nods.

“Was your bath alright?”

“Yeah, uh, perfect. You didn’t have to set it up for me, though. I usually do it myself — I’m not _that_ spoiled.” Dean huffs a laugh, rubbing his neck uncomfortably. “So, uh. I guess we got in kind of late, but — uh. Did you already eat?”

Cas quickly shakes his head. Of course he didn’t eat; he was waiting for Dean.

In some ways, he feels like he’s always waiting for Dean, but not in a bad way, the way you wait for things that won’t happen, or take too long to do so. He feels more like he waits the same way one lies awake in the shadowy blue dark of early morning, sure the sun is soon to rise.

Even if it’s _not_ soon _—_ it always does.

“Would you like me to ring for someone?”

Dean smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners in that way Cas has become irrepressibly fond of, so much so he wonders how he survived the first few months without hardly seeing it.

“That’d be great, Cas.”

Dean doesn’t stay as long as Cas was thinking about earlier, and he obviously doesn’t _do_ most of the things Cas was thinking about, either—

But it _is_ great.

It’s wonderful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past attempted rape/non-con: This is for an incident in New Eden, where Cas had been walking home and a councilman’s son attacked him. Cas fought and beat the man; in recounting the incident, he describes his feelings of fear and surprise, referencing New Eden’s views on his gender combination, and also relates some detail about the injuries he left the man with (scars on his face, a broken arm).
> 
> Past abuse: Due to the above incident, after which the councilman’s son lies and claims Cas attacked him unprovoked, Cas’s father whips him; the scars on his back are referenced.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: drunkenness, mild violence (accidental, details in the notes if you’re worried), mention of potential non-con (no actual non-con, non-graphic, details in the notes), please let me know if I missed anything.

“Sooo, Dean, where’d you disappear off to so quick last night?”

Dean pretends to be distracted by the game board he’s currently peering over, just to buy himself time to figure out an answer. If Charlie herself weren’t bad enough, he’s pretty sure Sam and Benny and Jo are giving him curious looks as well.

If it were _anyone else_ asking, Dean would leer and say, “Cas’s room,” and it’d be the truth, even if he felt gross about the implication.

Unfortunately, it’s most of the people in the world who know him best.

“Went and took a bath,” he says finally, moving his little blue gemstone. Benny looked almost wounded when Dean insisted on it, even though Dean’s always red, but Dean couldn’t bring himself to back down.

“Uh-huh. Guess you must have been tired, since you didn’t come to eat with the rest of us.”

“Well, yeah, Chuckles, I was. I just went on a three day hunting trip with _Dad._ You’d be tired, too.”

“Fair,” she says, and Dean inwardly breathes a sigh of relief. “But it’s weird — I ran into Emily when I went for a snack and she said you were in _Cas’s_ room.”

Son of a _bitch._ And he thought everyone was staring _before_.

“Where I took a bath and ate some dinner. Like I said.”

Charlie lifts her brows.

“Yeah? And when did you say you got back to your room?”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Was back by eleven, not that it’s any of your business.” He leans back, feigning unconcern. “If I don’t spend enough time in there, the council’ll get on my case about it again.”

“I see.” She looks at him, eyes shrewd. “So, no hanky-panky?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a little . . . _kissing_?”

To her right, Sam coughs.

“Charlie,” he says, warning, and she lifts her brows.

“What? Just asking. Cas is sweet, and dreamy, and he’s the Lawrence Woodchopping Champion. I think a lot of guys would want him to — um. Chop their wood.”

Benny looks disturbed.

“Uh. That ain’t really-”

“Shut up, Benny, it was a metaphor,” she mutters, then smiles kindly at Dean. “So even if you’re not _actually_ kissing him — you know, nobody would blame you if you wanted to.”

Dean gives her a bored look.

“Hilarious, Charlie. But no. There ain’t any kissing, and there ain’t gonna be, and that’s the way Cas and I like it.”

It’s mostly the truth, at least.

The full truth is that Dean thinks about kissing Cas a _lot._ He thinks about making out with Cas in the garden, in full, shameless view of all the plants, and he thinks about chasing the taste of after-dinner coffee, awkwardly leaned over that stupid table in his bedroom. He thinks about forgoing the riding trip altogether, tripping over the threshold and falling into Cas’s arms, and he thinks about ignoring the beautiful view from the hill in favor of pressing his mouth to Cas’s and leaving it there for the next half-hour.

He _definitely_ thinks about that night of the festival, when he actually did it, when Cas kissed him like he wanted it just as bad.

“Really?” Charlie says, doubtful, and Dean shrugs.

“Really.”

Because as much as he thinks about _kissing_ Cas? He thinks about _not_ touching him a lot more.

He lies there in his bed, staring unseeing at the canopy, and wonders if he doesn’t touch Cas, if he _never_ touches Cas, could Cas just _stay_ ? The council will make him do his duty with someone else, of that there is no doubt, but if they think Cas is barren, is _useless -_

Maybe they’ll let Dean have him anyway. Maybe they’ll let Dean have evenings riding through the orchard and toiling leisurely in the garden and tucking into well-earned meals together. Dean catches himself wondering, sometimes, if he _never_ puts his hands on Cas . . .

Maybe Cas could stay here forever.

Of course, for the most part, he knows better. If Cas can’t give him heirs, then they shouldn’t care what happens to him, but Dean’s pretty sure they will, pretty sure they’ll want to punish _someone_ for it, and they’ll certainly want to get rid of Cas.

Which — Dean doesn’t want him to go away. That’s the _last_ thing he wants, at this point. In a perfect world, they’d decide Cas didn’t owe them anything or couldn’t provide, and they’d let some noblewoman volunteer for the compensation benefits. And then Cas wouldn’t have to wait there under lock and key, he could roam the castle, start eating breakfast with everyone and training and buying his own books and getting wasted at the tavern and — and -

“Cas should be playing with us,” he says abruptly, and Charlie immediately perks up.

“Yeah?” she says slowly. “You think so?”

“Yeah. I mean — I know the council has its stupid rules, but Ed’s oblivious and Kate sure as hell won’t tell anyone, so as long as you guys keep your mouths shut . . .”

Sam hums, and then actually goes so far as to stroke his chin.

“Huh. Wow, you know, there’s a thought. You could bring him.”

Dean nods eagerly, liking the idea more and more.

“Yeah. Yeah, ‘cause — you know, he _really_ liked going around the festival with you guys, and even though he stopped asking about you, I can tell how close he listens when I mention you, and — and jesus, the guy doesn’t have _any_ friends, not here or where he came from, so I think — I mean — it’d just be _healthy,_ right?”

Charlie nods vigorously.

“Super. I mean, that’s a genius idea, Dean. I’m glad you finally thought of it.”

He blinks.

“What?”

“In _fact_ , we could even go ahead and play again tomorrow, if you wanted to invite him?”

Dean nods, tapping a finger against the table restlessly.

“Definitely. I mean, we’ll have to explain all the rules — I would’ve thought they had games in New Eden, but the way he talks about the place — man, it’s just _creepy._ So — so everybody’ll need to go easy on him, okay? It’s his first time.”

“Yup, always gotta be gentle the first time,” she agrees blandly, and Dean narrows his eyes.

“Don’t be gross, Charlie.”

“You totally walked right into that.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Dean smiles, satisfied. “Alright. I’ll, uh, I’ll let him know tonight.”

They finish their game — Dean loses miserably, too preoccupied with plans for tomorrow — and then he immediately heads downstairs, hoping Cas is up for an early dinner, or a late lunch, or maybe even just a snack.

He is. Kate brings them coffee and leftover french toast, looking equal parts approving and suspicious, and then Dean asks Cas how he feels about canceling riding tomorrow.

At first, Cas clearly feels _disappointed_.

“I understand if you have other obligations,” he offers neutrally, eyes sad, and it’s all Dean can do not to take his hands in his own.

“Yeah. I, uh, I promised Sam and Charlie and the rest a game night. But I thought, maybe somebody can distract Ed for a bit and you can — you can come with me?”

Cas blinks.

“To — play games?”

“Yeah.”

“With other people?”

“Yeah. If — if that’s okay. I just thought — you had fun at the festival, and Sam and Charlie are assholes, but they’re cool, too, and you seemed like you liked them so-”

“Yes. Yes, I want to.” Cas stares hard at Dean, like he might rescind the offer at any moment.

“Okay, then — let’s do it. We can, uh, we can eat with them, too. Make a night of it.”

He nods so fast Dean’s neck hurts just watching him.

“Alright. That — that sounds good.”

They’re simple words, ones that might sound lukewarm under other circumstances.

But Cas’s eyes _shine_ , and he looks at Dean like he’s the sun the light is coming from — except not, because you can’t look at the sun, or else you’ll blind yourself, but anyway — and even though Dean _knows_ the draw here is ‘fun games’ and ‘company that isn’t Dean, for once’, he can’t help himself.

He beams.

“No, it sounds _awesome._ ” He nudges Cas’s foot with his own underneath the table, and though Cas looks startled, that foot seems to chase Dean’s back to rest, where it nestles deliberately alongside it. “They’re gonna love you.”

Cas presses his lips together.

“I doubt that.”

Dean just shakes his head.

“Hey — how could they not?”

The look he gets is so sharp he wonders if he just accidentally told Cas half his friends were llamas.

But then Cas stares down at his coffee, apparently opting not to argue further, and Dean decides he should probably give Cas some background information on his not-llama friends, just to be safe. Cas has been stuck in his room for so long now, Dean thinks anyone would feel a little overwhelmed, and he wants to make sure he’s comfortable enough to have fun.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Cas doesn’t enjoy himself. Dean doesn’t really have a lot more to offer him, at this point.

“So, uh, do you remember meeting Benny before?”

Cas tilts his head, glancing back up.

“The man with the cap,” he confirms, and Dean nods. “I do, though I know him better from your stories now.”

“Well, I’ll tell you more about him, then. And his _Navy Battles_ strategy.”

“He serves in your navy?”

Dean laughs.

“No. Could have — not a bad sailor — but nah. I don’t think he likes to wander too far from home. Anyway — _Navy Battles_ is the game we’ll play tomorrow. Everybody gets a fleet of ships — they’re just little pieces of wood — and then we use dice and cards to fight each other.”

“Alright.” Cas looks a little lost, and Dean shakes his head.

“Don’t worry. We’ll show you how to play tomorrow.”

Cas smiles slightly.

“Don’t expect me to be any good. Most of the games Anna and I played were ones we made up.”

“You’ll do great,” Dean insists, then sits back, smirking. “If anybody gives you shit, just give ‘em the death stare and start flexing.”

“The death stare,” Cas repeats, frowning, and Dean nods.

“Yeah. That thing you do.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Shrugging, Dean does his best impression; he narrows his eyes, tightening his jaw and furrowing his brows just so.

Cas’s face immediately mirrors it.

“I don’t do that.”

Of course, Dean bursts out laughing.

Cas just does it harder.

In Dean’s opinion, game night goes _great._ Cas is full-on smiling practically from the time he arrives, and he even laughs a few times when people start getting ridiculous (Dean ignores the fact that two of those times are at Sam’s lame comebacks to Dean’s heckling). Dean’s pretty sure some of them are goofing off a little harder than usual — if he didn’t know any better, he’d say Benny and Jo are having some kind of competition for smiles, but since neither of them are giving Cas The Eye, Dean’s not worried about it — but looking around the table, he can’t help but feel a surge of affection for his friends.

Dean’s just one person. Logically, he understands that even if he gives Cas everything he has, this is something he can’t provide — though he’s sure it’s something Cas _needs._ Dean needs it, figures Charlie and Sam and the rest of them all need it, too, so why would Cas be any different?

Still — he can’t make them like Cas, or make him feel welcome, and watching them do that and more makes his chest feel tight.

“That’s it, we’re playin’ some good ol’ fashioned poker next,” Benny grumbles, once Charlie and Cas have effectively destroyed everyone at _Navy Battles._ Charlie insisted the newbie sail with her, and Cas had proceeded to repeat all of Dean’s advice about everyone’s strategy, completely without discretion.

(Everyone’s a little pissed at Dean. He figures they’ll get over it.)

Cas tilts his head.

“Sam told me never to play poker with Dean.”

Dean snorts, opening his mouth to respond -

And then his humor abruptly fades.

The panicked look on Charlie’s face tells him it was right to.

“Yeah?” he says slowly, stomach suddenly cold. “When, uh. When was that?”

He doesn’t remember Sam telling Cas that, and he’s been with Cas the whole time tonight, and at the festival. Charlie might have had the opportunity, but Sam -

“Uh. Earlier?”

For the record, Cas is a shit liar.

“Cas. When did Sam tell you that?”

“Dean -” Sam starts, and Dean scowls at him.

“You, too. When the hell did you see him?”

Sam hesitates, exchanging an uncertain look with Cas, and Dean _hates_ it.

“Charlie and I visit him sometimes.”

Dean nods shortly, digesting this.

“Both of you at the same time or separately?”

“Same time,” Charlie and Sam say quickly, and beside them, Cas frowns.

“They were being kind to me,” he interjects, and somehow, _he_ has the nerve to look a little angry. “You’re breaking the rules by bringing me here. You’ve let me garden with just a maid to watch me — you even suggested you do that every time. Them visiting me — that’s no different.”

It totally is, and Dean will be happy to tell him why as soon as he figures it out himself.

“Because you _all_ could have gotten in trouble!” he snaps. “Jesus, what were you idiots thinking? Cas could have got sent back to New Eden and Sam could have been shipped to an outpost and Charlie could have been banned from the castle!”

Charlie’s expression flattens.

“Dude, you’re _way_ exaggerating- _”_

“I am not! You don’t know what the consequences could have been, so you shouldn’t have done it!”

“Maybe we were willing to risk it! Maybe we — unlike you — saw how fucked up it was that he never _sees_ anybody and we decided, ‘hey, there’s no harm in making more friends!’”

She’s got a point — it’s why he brought Cas with him tonight, after all — but it was still completely fucking stupid of them to have done it.

“Yeah? What about Cas? What about what _he_ was risking, without even knowing it? I’m not kidding Charlie, whether you were there or not, if they found out Sam was sneaking in there for _any_ reason, they could do anything from send Cas back to New Eden or throw him in the _dungeon._ And there’d be fuckall any of us could do to stop it.”

Sam purses his lips.

“Dean, you’re overreacting.”

Dean shakes his head.

“How long has this been going on, anyway?”

Sam shifts uncomfortably.

“A few months?”

Dean can’t help himself. He looks at Cas.

“And you didn’t think you should _tell_ me?”

If anything, Cas looks _disappointed._

“No,” he says evenly. “I was afraid you’d be angry.”

It stings, more than Dean can say.

“Yeah? So you thought you’d just — lie?”

“Yes. In any case, I didn’t think it was my secret to tell.”

“Right, of course you didn’t.” Dean shakes his head, getting to his feet, and Sam winces. “Play some poker with him and then show him back to his room. You’re plenty familiar with it, after all.”

Charlie huffs.

“Dean, stop being such a butt and sit back d-”

“I’m not in the mood, Charlie.”

“Seriously, what’s the big deal? So we got a head start on Project De-isolation. You should be _happy._ ”

And yeah, maybe he should be, and maybe with some time, he will be, but for right now -

“It’s not the same and you know it,” he says quietly. “Anyway, Cas — enjoy your break from me. Guess you’ve earned it.”

Cas’s expression shutters, and Dean quickly turns toward the door.

Cas was afraid he’d be _angry._

And apparently, he was right to be.

Charlie rants at him for a full half hour later, but even when she reams him out over how _upset_ Cas was, Dean can’t bring himself to say anything.

“What is your _damage,_ Dean? I thought you wanted to make him happy. And now you’re punishing him for doing something that _makes_ him happy. You see how that’s _maybe_ kind of counterproductive?”

Dean just scowls at the floor.

“I’m not punishing him,” he does say, and Charlie snorts.

“You left him in a room half-full of strangers, well aware you were pissed at him over something he has no idea how to fix.”

“No, I left him to have fun playing games with people he’d already been having fun playing games with. I was being nice.”

“You were being a _dick._ Like you were when he first got here. Is that really how you wanna play this again?”

“I’m _not_. I’m allowed to be pissed.”

Charlie throws up her hands.

“You know he was having fun with _you,_ right? That he wanted to come with _you_ to play games? That he wanted _you_ to be the one to walk him to his room? Tell me you’re not this stupid.”

But that’s just it; Dean _doesn’t_ know that, and he doesn’t think it’s stupid to doubt it. This whole time, he thought Cas was — was getting _happier,_ and yeah, he thought it was him, that it was things he was doing, and he was doing his goddamned best to think of those things -

Except he only had half the story, and now that he’s got the rest, he knows he _wasn’t_ making Cas happier. Sure, Cas probably feels a lot better now that Dean’s not an asshole playing mindgames with him an d he can trust Dean not to knock him up and steal his children, but that’s all shit Dean’s _not_ doing.

It’s not anything special Dean _does._

(It’s not anything special Dean _is._ )

Anyway, even cranky redheads get tired of yelling at walls, and eventually, she storms out of the room and leaves him to wallow.

(Her words, not Dean’s.)

Which — yeah, maybe he does wallow. Maybe he goes over every little moment he can remember, wondering if Cas’s smile or his laughter or his bright, happy scent had anything to do with Dean at all, or if they came so easily because Sam and Charlie had been in his room goofing off a few hours prior.

Even just the other night, when Cas drew him a bath and had dinner with him — Cas was practically glowing. He seemed so — so — but what if he was just happy his _real_ friends were back?

What if Dean is just someone he puts up with so he can stay in Winchester Castle with Sam and Charlie for as long as possible?

What if he doesn’t give two shits about Dean _at all_?

(After all, why would he?)

Dean doesn’t know how to tell, doesn’t trust his memories or his instincts, and after going to bed cranky, he wakes up the same way.

It doesn’t help that he gets summoned after breakfast for the Hearings.

“Is that seriously today?” he asks Harry, and Harry shrugs.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Dean swears and gets dressed, resentfully donning his shiny gold crown before he heads for the throne room. From the window, he can already see the crowds gathered in the courtyard, awaiting entry to see the King.

Which — they’re there to see the _King._ Why the _hell_ does Dean have to attend? All he ever does on Hearing days is slouch in his lesser throne, trying not to look too much like he’s bored out of his fucking mind. And he’s pretty sure he usually fails. If anything, him being there makes his Dad look bad, so — why _is_ he?

Grumpy, Dean shuffles into the throne room and dutifully bows to his father before taking his seat. About twenty minutes later, they open the doors, and the first citizen comes through — three goats in tow.

They’re showing signs of demonic possession, and he wants them formally exorcised by a licensed castle priest.

Dean suppresses a sigh; it’s going to be a long day.

Given the night he had, he’s halfway to falling asleep by one o’ clock — at which point a familiar face approaches the steps, and suddenly, Dean’s wide awake.

“The hell?” he mutters.

The young alpha from the carriage accident clears his throat, bowing deeply.

“Your Majesty.” He rises, then turns to Dean, bowing again. “Your Highness.”

Dean inclines his head slightly.

“My name is Samandriel Milton,” he announces with a confidence at odds with his high voice and skinny, youthful frame.

John nods.

“And what matter do you wish to speak on?”

Samandriel takes a deep breath.

“I’ve come to request Castiel’s hand in marriage.”

The room turns dead silent.

Dean stares at him.

“I’m sorry — _what_?”

His father gives him a sharp look.

“Castiel has a duty to my son,” he says slowly. “I’m afraid we must decline.”

Samandriel nods.

“I understand that. I meant — when he’s fulfilled that duty. I want to marry him.”

Dean doesn’t really consider himself a violent person — certainly not where innocent children are concerned — but right then, he has the weirdest impulse to lunge out of his chair and throttle the stupid kid.

The room breaks into a rush of whispers and tittering laughter, but Samandriel keeps his spine straight.

John looks thoughtful.

“And why is that, boy? Young as you are, you seem a little old to set your heart on any pretty omega you spy from a distance.”

The boy frowns.

“I met Castiel when he saved my sister.” He pauses, then lifts his chin. “And I saw his true value as a _person._ ”

It’s bold, a barely veiled criticism of the king’s command, and if Samandriel were even a couple of years older, he probably wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it.

Dean hopes his dad is in a good mood today. Violent impulses aside, the kid is just that — a _kid._

His father considers this, and beyond them the crowd whispers, excitement almost palpable. More than a few of them look impressed.

More disturbing still, he thinks a couple of young women near the front look like they might _swoon._

He scowls.

“If something happens to his heirs,” John finally begins. “My son will need him to bear more.”

Samandriel draws back a little, surprise quickly turning to anger.

“Can’t he find someone else?”

Dean’s fists clench involuntarily, and he forces himself to stay still. He’s not even sure what his body wants to _do,_ but it definitely isn’t happy about sitting back and hearing this.

His father just raises his brows.

“No. And there are no guarantees, with children. It could be more than two before my son has his heirs.” He tilts his head. “You may wait a very long time.”

“Then I will,” the boy answers immediately, determined. “But don’t send him to the Gardens. Send him to me. If he’ll have me.”

John looks amused.

“Three,” he says. “Three alpha sons. Then we can see if, older and wiser, you’re still interested.”

The ‘in used goods’ goes unsaid, though Dean hears it.

He’s not sure who he wants to hit more.

Samandriel is — of fucking _course —_ undeterred.

“I will.” Abruptly, he turns to Dean, blue eyes fierce. “Your Highness — be good to him, please. And — and tell him I’m waiting for him.”

There’s a faint ripple of cheers among the onlookers, and for a moment, Dean can’t even muster a response. It’s taking all his effort not to stand up and bodily evict the presumptuous little brat from the throne room. As if Dean needs someone _else_ to tell him to fucking be _good_ to Cas -

Except, maybe he _does_ . He spent the first two months doing the opposite of that, didn’t he? And when he’s finally figured it out, finally managed to at least get on the right track, he’s throwing a tantrum because — because _what_ ? Cas doesn’t really like him? Since when does he _have_ to for Dean to treat him the way he deserves?

Dean’s not sure whether he’s more angry or ashamed. This kid, barely more than a teenager, has the balls to ask Dean’s king for something _Dean_ wants — and he might actually be the one to get it.

The crowd certainly seems to think he should.

“I’ll let him know,” he grits out.

Samandriel has the nerve to fucking look _pleased._ He thanks the king, bowing deeply once more, and then goes back the way he came.

Privately, Dean hopes he never returns.

Cas is pathetically relieved when Dean still knocks on his door the next evening.

“Hello, Dean,” he says quietly, not sure what to expect. Dean is unmistakably tense, tonight, and Cas is afraid he’s just as angry as he was yesterday.

He doesn’t know what to do about that. He can’t change the fact that Charlie and Sam visited him, and he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want them to stop, either. Cas has no idea how they feel, but he considers them both friends, and it doesn’t seem fair to have to give them up when they’ve made it this far without any trouble.

Even if he _did —_ Dean is angry about the lying. What is Cas supposed to do after the fact?

“Hey.” Dean hovers outside the door, hands in his pockets, and studies Cas in a way that makes him wish he could turn invisible and hide from view. “You ready to go?”

“Yes.”

Dean turns without another word, and Cas follows him down the stairs and out of the castle, dismayed.

Dean rides too fast today, leading them up to the forest and winding recklessly through the trees. Cas only barely manages to keep up, and when Dean stops to rest his horse next to an unfamiliar stream, Cas gathers his nerve. The only thing he can do, he’s decided, is _ask._

He’s just about to open his mouth when Dean beats him to it.

“So, uh. We held the biannual Hearings today.”

Cas blinks.

“What are those?”

“Sessions where any citizen can bring a matter before the king. Requests, disputes — one guy brought in a wheelbarrow full of crumbling stone, wanted a road fixed.”

“Oh. Alright.” Cas wishes he’d known about them beforehand. He might have tried running away to ask that Anna be spared.

Although, given her recent letters, she’s been much happier since she was forced to run.

“Yeah.” Dean clears his throat, leaning against a tree and studying the water. “So, uh. Someone came to ask for your hand.”

Cas blinks, sure he misheard.

“What?”

“The boy you helped,” Dean clarifies, though he doesn’t look up. “On the way here.”

Cas just stares.

“He’s a child.”

Dean shrugs.

“Not much younger than you. And he wants you when — when you’re, uh. When you’re done, here.”

Oh.

Cas looks down, and does his best to keep his voice even.

“And — are you going to give me to him?

In his peripheral, he sees Dean lift his shoulders slightly.

“If that’s what you want.”

He sounds — he sounds so _unconcerned,_ which — it makes Cas feel _terrible._ Even if whatever mysterious plans of Dean’s fail, even if Cas ends up at the Gardens, waiting for Dean to call on him — he realizes, suddenly, that he’s _Dean’s._ He doesn’t know when he started feeling that way, might not have realized it at all, if Dean weren’t talking about just — _giving him away,_ but he is. He feels that strongly.

And yet — Dean would just let him go.

“Or-” Dean starts, and Cas’s head snaps up so fast he nearly gets dizzy, shamefully hopeful. “Or maybe we could get your sister. You could — you could be with her.”

Cas swallows, disappointment washing over him in heavy, irrepressible waves. It hits him, then, just how _badly_ he wants to stay with Dean.

But Dean, apparently, does not want to stay with him.

“I don’t know,” he manages, and Dean fixes him with a sharp look.

“You don’t know,” he repeats, faintly unhappy. “So — you’re interested in marrying him, huh?”

Nothing could be further from the truth, but Cas shrugs, anyway.

“I guess I won’t know until I’m — what did you say? Done here.”

For a long moment, Dean doesn’t respond, and then he nods.

“Let’s head back.”

He doesn’t look at Cas once as he returns to his horse, and even though this isn’t something he has any reason to fear Dean’s anger over -

Cas feels worse than when he started out.

They don’t talk about Sam and Charlie’s visits, or the marriage proposal, or the long, awful silences that now fall between them, and when Dean announces that he’ll be taking a five-day trip to help train at an outpost at the border, Cas doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

Is distance _good_ for them, at this point? Dean’s mood is so ominous, Cas doesn’t understand why he doesn’t cancel at least some of their evenings together, but he seems determined to see them through — albeit in weighted silences and stilted conversation. Whatever obligation is driving him, maybe he’d do better with a break.

If Cas is being entirely honest, he doesn’t care for the idea that Dean needs time away from him, but he’s hardly in a position to object.

As the days pass, it becomes apparent that despite the new, unpleasant tension, Cas misses him anyway. Even Charlie and Sam startling him in his garden by popping up from behind the terrace balustrade, much to Kate’s amusement, fails to cheer him entirely.

He doesn’t like Dean being away, and he doesn’t like worrying about how things will be when Dean returns. Logically, he understands that much of Dean’s peculiar devotion to him was probably motivated by his desire to circumvent his own fate — as well as a tendency to ‘play the hero,’ as Charlie has called it — but emotionally, he just — he just _wants._

Even if reason says he can’t have, Cas wants anyways.

It’s a long, lonely few days, and the night before Dean is expected to return, Cas takes hours to completely fall asleep — only to be awoken shortly after by a fumbling at the lock on his bedchamber door.

At first, he’s not sure what disturbed him. He thinks it might be a mouse, on a fruitless search for sustenance, and then he wonders if he’s confused, if it’s wind upsetting the locks on the windows.

It quickly becomes clear that it’s the door, and what’s more, that someone is trying to get in.

He shoves the covers aside, pulse quickening. Ed can’t be a very useful guard, given how easily and often Sam and Charlie make their way to his room, and in the distraction of Dean’s anger, Cas forgot that there’s a _reason_ he’s not supposed to leave his room without Dean.

There’s meant to be no question of the heirs’ legitimacy. If Dean is the only man or alpha Cas ever sees, Dean must be the only possible father of his children.

Cas stares grimly at the door. All his usual visitors know to knock. The only kind of person who would break in would be one with nefarious purpose. Either someone intends to hurt him, or someone is assuming Dean has been attempting to perform his duty and has come to try and confuse the issue.

Well, they’re stupid if they think Cas wouldn’t tell, and they’re beyond help if they think he won’t _fight_ them.

He swiftly moves to gather the heavy candelabra off the fireplace mantel, and positions himself just behind the door, ready to strike.

If Cas has his way, his attacker isn’t going to get a chance.

He settles in with no time to spare; the lock clicks, a satisfied grunt sounding from the hall, and then the door pushes open. Cas grips the candelabra, high above his head, and the instant the man steps into view, he starts to bring it down.

And then he recognizes the silhouette of the intruder’s profile, and despite his best efforts to halt or divert the object’s path, momentum carries it down. Cas feels the impact more than he hears it, and he watches in horror as Dean slumps to the ground, the candelabra tumbling after him.

Cas starts shouting for help before the blood has even begun to trickle past his temple.

In retrospect, Dean maybe made some bad decisions.

For starters, he probably should have just stayed the whole five days. No matter how antsy he was feeling about leaving things with Cas the way he had, no matter how worried he was about Cas having all this time to list out all the pros to marrying stupid Samandriel, no matter how much Dean just plain _miss_ _ed_ him, even though things aren’t great right now and he’s pretty confident the feeling isn’t mutual -

He had a _job_ to do. And he should have stayed and seen it through.

But then he was snapping at the trainees a little too much and Benny was telling him to cool it and Dean was saying a bunch of vague, non-committal stuff that was certainly not about his feelings, so when Benny clapped him on the shoulder and told him to head on home and try and sort things out, promising to handle the wrap-up there . . . Dean pretty much didn’t think twice.

(Which, not thinking twice is starting to look like a problem for him.)

So he rode back home like a madman, only stopping to change his horse — even eating is something Dean decided he could multitask — and when he got back into Lawrence a little past dinnertime . . .

He completely lost his fucking nerve.

And where better to find it again than at the bottom of a tankard of ale?

So Dean stopped in at his favorite tavern, just for a drink, something to calm the anxiety to a point where he could figure out what he even wanted to _say_ to Cas; but then it occurred to him that maybe _Cas_ would have some things of his own to say. Cas had told Dean that he wasn’t allowed to mate or marry, in New Eden. And when Dean had specifically asked him about whether he wanted to marry Samandriel — Cas had said he didn’t _know_.

Obviously, the right answer was, “No, I’d like to go stay with my beloved older sister.” And of course, the best answer would have been, “But most of all I’d like to stay with _you,_ ” a sentiment which Cas _should_ have punctuated by backing Dean against a tree and kissing him like he did the night of the festival, like it was the only thing in the world he wanted to do.

(It does occur to Dean that he may have kindly misconstrued or embellished the events of that night, but it also occurs to him that it’s _fantasy,_ and damn it, he’s allowed.)

But nope. Cas said he ‘didn’t know.’ And if Cas ‘didn’t know’ four days ago, then maybe he’s had enough time apart from Dean and Dean’s weird moods and Dean’s guilty leerings and God knows what else he may have noticed, and he may have decided that he liked the idea of having a _proper_ mate, one who’d marry him and bite him and, you know, not keep him locked up like a goddamn prisoner.

In light of that, Dean decides it’s a good idea to get blistering drunk before he goes to see Cas, just to — preemptively dull the pain of rejection.

Unfortunately, his blistering drunk self has a number of its own ideas, one of which is that Cas might still be awake at half past midnight, and another of which is that, in case he’s _not,_ Dean should just pick the lock and peek in rather than risk waking him with any loud knocking.

Thus, shortly before one o’ clock, Dean has made his way past the snoozing night guard and, after a few wrong turns, managed to stumble his way to Cas’s door.

Suddenly rather tired, though still feeling it very urgent that he see where Cas is at _right now_ and offer some as-yet-to-be-determined counterpoints depending, Dean bends over the door knob and pulls out his pins.

He must be getting rusty, though, because it takes him a while, and by the time he’s managed to wrangle the damn thing open, he’s worried that if Cas _was_ asleep, he’ll have woken up, now, and the last thing a guy looks for in a mate is some asshole who wakes him up in the middle of the night -

Abruptly, Dean hears a whoosh of air; it’s followed by a terrible, blinding pain in his skull, and then the world around him is no more.

He wakes with a groan, head throbbing.

“Jesus, how much did I _drink_?” he mumbles, futilely trying to wet his lips with a tongue that feels like sawdust. The room very gradually comes into focus — once he’s managed to pry his eyes open, anyway — and he’s startled to find Sam peering intently at him, worry in his gaze.

“A lot,” his brother says, sounding a little strained. “But mostly it was getting bludgeoned over the head.”

Dean stares.

“What?”

Sam shakes his head.

“You went to Cas’s room and he — he hit you with a candelabra. We weren’t sure you’d wake up.”

Dean stares.

“Cas?” he swallows. “ _Cas_ did this?”

Sam hesitates.

“Yeah, but-”

“Are you seriously telling me Cas tried to _kill me_?”

“I didn’t hear his side of the story, Dean, but I don’t think-”

“Fuck.” Dean lifts a hand to his aching head, blood running cold. “ _Fuck._ Has he — has he seriously been playing me this whole time? Just — just waiting until he knew I-”

And Cas _would_ know, wouldn’t he? For someone as clever as Cas is, Dean’s stupid tantrum once he found out about Sam and Charlie would have been _transparent._ And if Cas had any doubts before, Dean’s reaction when that little brat showed up to the Hearings and asked for Cas’s hand-

Everything Dean used to be afraid of has happened, hasn’t it? Cas did everything just so, convinced Dean to trust him, made Dean — made Dean _feel_ shit — and now he beats him over the head with a candelabra heavy enough that his sister probably couldn’t even have lifted it high enough to do the same?

Dean’s surprised he’s _not_ dead. Cas will probably be surprised, too.

Dean’s a fucking moron.

“Jesus Christ. I knew better. I _knew —_ everyone said I was being stupid, but I was being _smart_ , because I knew since I saw him that my instincts were gonna be shit where he was concerned and then I still went and-”

“Dean, stop it,” Sam interrupts, scowling. “I don’t know what Cas was doing — I don’t even know what _you_ were doing in his room at that hour in the first place — but it’s _Cas._ I don’t think he has a murderous bone in his body.”

Dean grimaces.

“That’s because you’re not the one he wants to murder.”

“Dean-”

“He gives me the murder-eyes all the fucking time, Sam, and I thought it was just, you know, a cute, scary thing he did, when I was being obnoxious, but clearly-”

“Clearly you need to _talk_ to him.”

“He almost _killed_ me, Sam! I think we’re past the point of talking!”

“Dean, you can’t decide he wants to kill you every time you feel insecure about your feelings.”

Dean gapes.

“ _I nearly died tonight!_ ”

Sam’s jaw tightens.

“You did,” he says quietly, a shadow in his eyes. “But you’re alive. You’ve got to deal with this, one way or the other. And you can’t decide how to do that until you talk to him.”

“And give him another opportunity to cloud my judgment? Because no matter what angle you look at it from, obviously my judgment’s no good! Not where he’s concerned!”

Sam is silent for a moment, studying him.

“He’s in the dungeon. So you know.”

Dean throws off the blanket and lurches out of bed, ignoring the way his head revolts.

“ _Excuse_ me? He’s the only person in the castle whose room already functions as a goddamn prison, what the _fuck_ is he doing in the dungeon?” he demands, stumbling toward the door.

Sam stands, hastening after him.

“Dean, you’re supposed to be in bed-”

“Where are my pants? I had a head injury, you assholes, who the hell took off my _pants_ -”

Sam snatches them off a chest at the foot of the bed and throws them to him.

“Thank you,” Dean mutters, leaning heavily against the wall as he jerks them on. His head is _killing_ him, and he’s not totally confident he can manage stairs right now, hungover and concussed as he probably is, but damn if he’s not going to try.

“Do you want me to walk you down?” Sam asks patiently, and Dean glares.

“No.”

Sam helps him anyway, and Dean lets him, just because it’s important for kids Sam’s age to feel useful.

He draws the line at letting him go into the dungeons with him.

“But I want to see how he’s doing-”

“I’ll let you know after I talk to him,” Dean says shortly. “I can’t — I can’t do this with an audience.”

Sam frowns.

“Okay,” he agrees, albeit reluctantly. “Just — try to keep your head, okay?”

Dean’s not entirely sure he’s capable of that, where Cas is concerned.

“I will.”

He can tell by the look on Sam’s face that he knows it’s a lie, but Sam just sighs, leaning against the wall.

“Okay. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

“Dude, you should go to bed-”

“And _you_ should have stayed there,” Sam points out, unimpressed. “Either go talk to him or come back up with me. I’ll be here until then.”

Dean narrows his eyes.

“You’re kind of a bitch, sometimes.”

“Probably less often than you’re a jerk.”

Dean just shakes his head, and pulls open the door to the dungeons.

Immediately, two guards flank him.

“Your highness — we’re so glad to see you awake -”

“Where’s Cas? Castiel. Where’d you put him?”

They exchange looks.

“He’s in one of the cells, per your father’s instruction-”

Dean swears.

“Take me to him.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” The first man hesitates. “Actually, are you sure you’re supposed to be out of be-”

“Just take me to him, okay?”

After a moment, the pair shrug at each other and start walking down the corridor.

“This way, your Highness.”

Dean wobbles — in a very dignified fashion — after them, and at the very end of the hall, barely illuminated by the distant glow of a wall sconce, there’s Cas.

He’s just sitting on the cot, staring blankly at the wall, and he startles badly when Dean clears his throat.

And then he goes pale.

“Dean?”

“No need to look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Dean says, trying for dry and ending up with hoarse. “You didn’t quite manage to kill me.”

Cas just stares at him for a moment.

And then blue eyes well up, and he scrambles off the cot, striding to the bars of the cell.

Dean does his best to ignore the tears, and the deep ache they put in his chest (and the way his own eyes suddenly sting in response).

“I thought I had,” Cas whispers, still staring. “I thought-”

Dean steels himself, looking Cas dead in the eye and holding his gaze.

“Did you mean to?” he asks. “Were you trying to kill me?”

Cas sucks in a breath, eyes widening.

“No. No, of course not — I thought someone was breaking in, Dean. You were supposed to be gone another day, and you usually _knock,_ I thought — I thought someone was coming to hurt me, or to try and confuse the issue of heirs.”

“And when you saw it was me?” Dean asks, staring hard. Cas’s expression crumples a little.

“It was too late. I tried to stop it, to at least shift it, but it’s heavy and -”

Dean nods. When Sam told him what hit him, he, too, was surprised he wasn’t dead.

Cas is saying he tried, and Dean’s willing to bet he succeeded, if Dean’s already awake and walking around.

Still — just to be sure, just so he knows it’s not the head injury, or the blind, stupid emotion that sent him home early and drove him to drink -

“So — you didn’t want to kill me,” he repeats, watching carefully.

Cas looks appalled, hands gripping the bars so hard they turn white.

“No. I would never. Even before, when I first came here, when I thought you were — Dean, I would _never._ ”

And even though Cas could still be lying — could always be lying, and isn’t that the most terrifying part of it, that Dean has no way of knowing, just has to _trust —_ something inside him settles.

He nods.

And then, suddenly tired, he sinks down to the floor.

“Dean?” Cas hastily crouches with him. “Dean, are you alright? Should I call-”

“Please don’t ever want me dead,” Dean interrupts, vision swimming. He blames it on the concussion. “Because if you — if you did, I think that’d mean I deserved it. It’d mean I made you feel that way.”

“I won’t,” Cas says urgently, fingers slipping through and ghosting over Dean’s shoulder. “Dean, you need to go back to bed.”

Dean shakes his head.

“It was my dumb ass’s fault. I don’t think I can get you out till the morning, so if you spend the night here, I should, too.”

Cas swallows.

“I don’t care about being in the dungeon, Dean. I just — the worst thing was not knowing if you’d — if you were okay.”

His voice wavers.

His voice fucking _wavers,_ stupid blue eyes wide and openly _anguished,_ and right then, Dean decides he honestly doesn’t care if Cas is lying, if Cas lies right up until the day he does put a knife through Dean’s heart.

This is fine, and Dean’s pretty sure he loves him anyway.

Dean sluggishly reaches up and wraps a hand around the one reaching through the bars, lacing their fingers together even as exhaustion seems to pour over him.

“It’s okay if you don’t, though,” he mumbles, squeezing. “I just don’t care anymore.”

Cas presses forward.

“Dean? Dean, you can’t sleep here, you have to go back.”

“Later,” he promises, and then that dim, distant candlelight flickers right out.

He wakes up in the infirmary again.

“Where’s Cas?” he mumbles, and Sam, bags under his eyes a little lighter than the last time he saw him, smirks a little.

“What, you’re not mad anymore?”

Dean grunts, closing his eyes again.

“Thought I fell asleep in the dungeon.”

“You did,” Sam agrees. “Part of the medicine.”

“Then why the _hell_ am I not in the dungeon?”

Sam looks amused.

“Because Cas called for us to come haul your dumb ass away.”

“What about _him_?” Dean scowls. “It’s daylight. He better be out.”

Sam nods, patting Dean’s leg soothingly.

“Yeah. He told me what happened, before I left — well, technically he was apologizing — and I talked to Dad.”

“He believed it?”

“Um.” Sam shrugs, scratching his head. “Kind of? There’s additional guards in front of Cas’s door, and Kate’s supposed to be staying with him at all times. He wanted to talk to you.”

Dean nods, and starts to get up.

“Alright, let’s go -”

Sam pinches his leg.

“ _Ow._ What the hell, Sam?”

“Cas is in his room, where he pretty much always is, anyway. He’s fine. You, on the other hand, need to stay put.”

“I’m fine.”

His brother rolls his eyes.

“You will be. But Annie wants to keep an eye on you, just in case.”

“But-”

“And _Cas_ wants you to stay here,” Sam adds, a little smug. “He’s, um. He’s really worried about you.”

It should be sweet (and it kind of is, if Dean’s being honest) but Sam says it in a suspiciously neutral voice, like he’s making fun of Dean.

“Shut up.”

In response, Sam just starts laughing.

After two more days, Annie pronounces him free to go, and Dean heads straight for Cas’s room — like he’s been trying to do since Sam first made him stay put.

“You’re dismissed,” Dean tells the guards outside, and when they open their mouths to protest, adds, “I already talked to my father.”

They look at one another, hesitant, which is probably fair, because technically Dean wrote a very polite letter to his father just before they let him out of bed.

Same thing, he figures.

“Are you sure? We only saw him going in, but I gotta say, he looked a lot scarier than he did in that dress when you went for The Drive-”

Dean draws himself up, scowling.

“First of all? Cas was fucking _terrifying_ in that dress, and if you thought otherwise, you’re a fool. Second of all? I don’t need you to protect me from _Cas._ He won’t hurt me.”

“Uh. But he already-”

“It was an accident,” Dean interrupts flatly, and the guy nods awkwardly.

“Right, but you just said he was terrifyi-”

“What part of ‘you’re dismissed,’ don’t you understand?” Dean snaps.

The guard winces, elbowing his partner.

“Of course, your Highness.”

They quickly make their way down the hall, and Dean scowls after them until they disappear.

And then — very deliberately — he raps on the door.

It opens almost immediately, Kate holding it frustratingly close as she looks him over, expression bland.

“Oh, hey there, Dean. Didn’t hear you out there.”

“Hi, Kate,” he greets her, trying not to peer around her shoulders. “How, uh, how’s it going?”

“Good. We were just playing Go Fish. Really, though, I should be asking _you_ -”

Kate stumbles a little as the door gets tugged open wider, Cas slipping in between the two.

“Dean?” he says, eyes raking frantically over him. “You — you’re up. You’re _here._ ”

Dean shifts, tucking his hands in his pockets, suddenly feeling awkward.

“Yup. Just got out. Thought I’d, uh. Come let you know you need better aim next time.”

Cas’s expression melts into horror.

“I — I thought you knew — I didn’t — that was -”

Dean hastily steps forward, lifting a hand.

“Hey, no, it was a joke. I just meant — I’m fine. Gonna be fine.” He grins at Cas, lifting his brows. “You got room for another in Go Fish? I’ve been bored out of my mind.”

He has, in fact, spent two days playing cards with Sam, but Cas doesn’t need to know that.

Cas relaxes, fingers curling around the doorknob.

“I, um. I think so. If it’s alright with Kate.”

“Sure,” Kate says, crossing her arms and smiling slightly. “Don’t mind me. Although, if Dean’ll be sticking around for a little while, I might go get some fresh air.” She gives Dean a meaningful look. “Maybe you guys should do the same.”

Dean nods, trying not to look too excited about the prospect of her leaving.

“Sounds good. You, uh. You up to visit your garden?”

Cas nods eagerly.

“I hope it’s not dead.”

“Shouldn’t be. I told Sam to check in on it, just in case, though.”

Cas just sort of looks at him for a moment, but says nothing.

“Uh. I hope that was okay. I know it — it’s _your_ garden, but I just thought-”

“No, I’m glad. Thank you.” Cas is still staring at him.

Kate coughs.

“Well, enjoy, guys.” She slips past Dean, lightly hitting his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, you too.” Dean blinks. “I mean, thanks. Thank you, Kate.”

Kate just chuckles and keeps walking.

“So, uh.” Dean lifts a hand in a half-shrug. “Shall we?”

Cas’s gaze flickers down, and then -

He reaches for that upturned hand, firmly grasping it.

“Yes.”

Dean doesn’t have the nerve to tell him that’s not what he meant; he lets their hands awkwardly fall, still entwined, and for the first time ever, he and Cas leave the castle side-by-side.

“I don’t know how much you remember,” Cas starts, once they’ve been out there for a half hour or so. He’s been watching Dean out of the corner of his eye the whole time, and Dean has casually sprawled out on the lawn beside him, desperately pretending not to notice. “But — you came to see me in the dungeon.”

Dean doesn’t blush.

“Yeah. Yeah, I — I remember.”

Mostly. He’s pretty _sure_ he didn’t say anything incriminating, but Cas could always prove that theory wrong.

“Oh. I just — I wanted to make sure you knew that I wouldn’t — that it really was an accident.”

Dean nods.

“I know, Cas.”

Cas sets down his spade and turns fully to face Dean, hands clasping over his knees.

“I — I’d never hurt you, Dean. I don’t think I could,” he presses on, earnest, and Dean’s chest suddenly feels tight.

“Uh. Same, Cas. You know I . . . same.”

“I know. I do know, Dean, I . . .” Cas hesitates, and then abruptly turns back to the flowerbed. “I know.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s — good. Thanks, Cas.”

Cas just sort of nods jerkily, reaching for his spade.

They’re quiet after that. Dean feels like there are a thousand things to say, but he has neither words nor courage for any of them.

Something about the way Cas purposefully moves about the garden, never quite looking at him, makes him feel like he missed something anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***SPOILERS***
> 
> Mild violence: An inebriated Dean decides to visit Cas in the middle of the night, and picks the lock on Cas’s bedchamber door so he can check if Cas is sleeping instead of potentially waking him up with a knock. Cas does wake up, and assuming anyone breaking in must mean him harm, waits by the door with a heavy candelabra. He realizes it’s Dean too late, and brings the candelabra down on his head, knocking him unconscious and nearly killing him.
> 
> Mention of potential non-con: Hearing someone breaking into his bedchamber, Cas considers the possibility that it may be someone who assumes Dean has been attempting to get him with child and has come to try and confuse the paternity issue. It is not considered in any graphic detail, nor is that what’s happening.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: none that I can think of, please let me know if I was wrong.

“Dean! Mail.”

Dean slows his pace, letting Kevin catch up to him.

He’s not surprised to see the familiar blue, flowing script, but he is surprised to see his own name written in it.

“The hell?”

He plucks it off the stack, ignoring the look Kevin gives him, and notices a second one addressed to Cas.

Well, at least Cas’s sister’s not enough of a dick to forget to write him, too.

“The whole stack is for you,” Kevin adds, a little pointed, and Dean finally holds out a hand for the rest.

“Thanks, Kevin. Happy delivering.”

Kevin sighs.

“Thanks. Happy reading. And hey — I’m glad Castiel didn’t kill you!”

Dean snorts.

“You and me both, man.”

The instant Kevin’s out of sight, Dean tears open the letter. He’s been insanely curious over what Anna writes Cas about, even once he figured out she was his sister; and now that he knows she’s one of the two options Cas is considering when he leaves, Dean’s desperate to know which way he’s leaning.

Like — it’s his _sister,_ right? Of course he’d choose his sister. She’s the only person who ever cared about him, by the sounds of it.

But — even if he goes to stay with Anna at _first_ , won’t he eventually do something different? Isn’t that what most people do? Like, Sammy’s always gonna be with him, Dean’s known that since forever, because that’s what second sons _do —_ they’re like an auxiliary ruler — but regular people find mates and establish their own households, and those households usually don’t include all their close friends and family.

It’d just be naive to think Cas wouldn’t do the same, even if he decides he doesn’t want to do it with clearly-still-immature boys from small towns in the middle of the countryside that almost certainly have nothing of interest to offer him.

And even if Dean could hurry and get the whole heir-producing thing out of the way once he’s gone, that’s a minimum of _two years._ Sure, Cas’ll want to settle in with Anna, live life, etc., but by the time Dean’s ready to maybe go just — see how he’s doing . . .

Cas could be doing great — with someone else.

Anyway, it weighs on him, and he eagerly unfolds the sheet of parchment, hoping for any kind of clue.

_Prince Dean of Winchester,_

_It was very strange to receive Cas’s letter, and stranger still to hear its delivery was sanctioned by the prince himself._

_I’m not sure what I expected. To hear that he had fallen ill, or to hear that he was in the family way; perhaps you wished to gloat over the runaway._

_I was not expecting ten pages detailing his surprisingly full life at the castle, nor was I expecting more of those pages to be devoted to speaking of_ _ you _ _than to telling me about his garden._

_My brother is growing flowers, your Highness. My brother has always wanted to grow flowers._

_It’s a curious thing, indeed, that he should finally be able to do so only after being abducted from his home to serve as a royal broodmare._

_It is also curious that it has been nearly half a year and the kingdom remains without cause for celebration._

_He said, if the letter made it to me, to tell him where to send the next one._

_He believes you will send it._

_I think, albeit cautiously, that you are not as heartless as_ _we assumed. How far that extends is impossible to say — captivity may be getting to Castiel — but I think it is far enough that I will risk asking._

_This practice is barbaric. New Eden is barbaric, as well. I imagine you’ve seen his back, by this point (though perhaps not). Suffice to say, they are not undeserving of condemnation._

_What Winchester does, however, it does not do to New Eden,_ _or_ _to the people who keep it that way. It does it to those who already suffer from those ways, and it is_ _ not _ _just, in any sense. Since leaving, I have found that a fair number of your people agree with me._

_I suspect you have at least considered it, even if_ _ you _ _do not yet agree._

_So_ _I ask that you consider it further. Castiel cannot return home, but he can come to me. It isn’t too late to change, your_ _H_ _ighness, and I believe some part of you must know it’s time to do so._

_For my part, I think it’s better to do the right thing before you no longer have a choice._

_In the meantime, I thank you for Castiel’s letter. I will_ _write him again_ _soon._ _As for you — I suppose time will tell._

It’s unsigned — Anna’s clearly not interested in pandering to royalty, not that Dean blames her — and also, it doesn’t tell him anything he didn’t know.

Though if Cas does go with her — Dean feels a little better about it. He’s not sure what Anna’s up to, but he believes she’ll try her damnedest to look after Cas. She ran away from home with nothing and is somehow staying afloat; anything she _can’t_ do — well, those are things Cas probably can.

They’ll probably be fine.

Which — it should make Dean happy, thinking that once the council gets pissed and gives Cas the boot, he’ll have somewhere safe to go. Obviously, Dean’ll do what he can on the sly, make sure they’re comfortable, but if Cas were by himself, Dean would worry a lot more.

So — this is good news; Anna doesn’t know what Dean is planning, but she’s apparently ready, anyway, which will make things a lot easier on Cas (assuming he doesn’t decide to marry that brat from the North).

Still, Dean struggles to feel very happy about it.

Of course, Dean’s feelings aren’t the point here, are they? The point is that Cas needs options — _good_ ones — and it looks like he’s going to have at least one.

Dean glances at the letter, already knowing what he has to do.

He sighs, and heads up to Cas’s room.

“Oh. I’m sorry, Anna is, um. Suspicious, by nature. She’s not usually rude.”

Dean makes a face.

“What? She was fine. I’d be way worse if I had to write a letter like that about Sammy.”

“Yes, but you’re you,” Cas murmurs, tucking Dean’s letter back in the envelope. He hadn’t told Anna that Dean was trying to find a way out of this situation already, both because he didn’t want to raise her hopes and because he didn’t want to risk conveying his own disappointed ones.

Anna would have a lot to say on that subject, he suspects.

“What?”

Cas glances up, squinting.

“What?”

“No, I’m asking _you_ -” Dean huffs. “Never mind.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Cas sets aside the letter addressed to himself, as well. Given her remark to Dean (did he really say that much about him? Cas was only trying to reassure her of his comfort, entertainment, and general well-being), he has some ideas about what his own letter contains, and he’d rather not read it with an audience.

“It’s a little early to go riding. Are you going to come back, or . . . would you like to play some cards?”

Dean suddenly looks abashed.

“We haven’t had another game night since then,” he says. “Or I would have — I would have brought you. I wasn’t — I haven’t been excluding you, I just-”

“It’s fine, Dean,” Cas says, although admittedly, he’s relieved to hear it. He’s not sure how much longer he’ll be here, and he hates the idea of having ruined something all of them could have enjoyed, even if he still doesn’t know what he reasonably should have done differently. “I just wasn’t sure if you were busy this afternoon.”

Dean swallows.

“No. No, I’m free.” He looks tentative. “You sure you don’t want me to leave you alone to read your letter?”

_I never want you to leave me alone,_ Cas almost says, but he doubts Dean would appreciate it, and besides — the statement would probably prove false, if he actually had to spend every waking moment with Dean.

Still — he’s begun to think he’d like to at least spend most of them together, even if he knows it’s not a sentiment Dean shares.

For a moment, he amuses himself with thinking of their positions reversed; he’s sure he’d never go to training or meetings or get any work done at all, knocking at Dean’s door whenever Dean would have him.

Cas grows more pathetic by the day.

“No,” he says, smiling a little. “I can read it when you don’t have time for me.”

Dean opens his mouth, looking a little distraught, then shuts it.

“Sorry.”

Cas blinks.

“For what?”

“I — if I could, I’d — I didn’t know you, uh. Wanted me to. Spend more time with you.”

Cas hesitates.

“I enjoy your company,” he says cautiously. “As I’ve said.”

“Right, but — I mean. I’ve been, uh, livin’ in your pocket, practically. And you’ve got Sam and Charlie, anyway, so . . . I guess I just thought . . .”

Cas has expressed this exact feeling before — more than once — but he supposes Dean has been too preoccupied with second-guessing his motives to actually absorb much.

“The one isn’t really a replacement for the other,” he says, tilting his head. “Any more than Sam and Charlie’s visits are a substitute for my sister’s letters.”

Then again, Cas does seem to be developing a nasty habit of wanting much, much more than he can actually have.

“No, of course not, but I’m — I keep-” Dean cuts off, taking a breath. “Sometimes it’s a, uh. A small-doses kind of thing.”

Cas blinks.

“Small doses of . . . what?”

Dean just looks back at him for a long moment, and then he sighs, shaking his head.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he mumbles, then clears his throat. “So, uh. Have you — have you thought about it some more?”

Cas tilts his head, still baffled.

“Thought about what?”

Dean leans against one of the bedposts, his gaze flicking down.

“What you wanna do, later. You know — accept that marriage proposal, or go to Anna, like she wants. Or — or are you still on the fence?”

Cas’s good mood dims a little, and he folds his hands together.

“Uh. I guess — I haven’t been thinking of it. It’s a long way off, isn’t it?”

Dean hesitates.

“I mean. Maybe? Maybe not, though. Could be sooner than you think.”

Cas tries not to look too unhappy at the prospect. Dean is trying, for both their sakes. He shouldn’t be so ungrateful.

“But it might not.”

He gets a frown in return.

“Aren’t you . . . I don’t know, excited? Whatever you decide — I mean, you’ve got choices.”

_Not the one I want._

“I appreciate that,” he offers. Dean frowns harder.

“Do you not trust me?” he asks. “Because I meant what I said, Cas. I’m gonna get you out of this.”

“I trust you, I just — I understand that it will be difficult. I don’t expect a miracle overnight.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “And — and if it turns out you can’t, I don’t blame you. I _won’t_ blame you. Some things can’t be helped, Dean. If we have to let it go, then we will.”

“This is a pretty big thing to just _let go,_ ” Dean argues, straightening up. Cas wonders if there will come a day when he and Dean _don’t_ manage to get into fights over stupid things. “You’re talking about your whole future, Cas.”

“I never expected to have one, anyway,” Cas points out.

If anything, Dean looks angrier.

“ _Exactly._ Which is why you deserve one. And I’m gonna make sure you get it. You just have to decide what you want.”

Cas looks away, tired. He knows what he wants, and what he wants is impossible.

He’s not brave enough to say so and hear Dean agree.

“Fine. I’ll think about it harder. Can we play cards now?”

Dean narrows his eyes.

Then he takes a deep breath.

“Look — just because those are your only two options now doesn’t mean they’ll always be,” he says, catching Cas off guard. “If you stay with your sister — the world kind of opens up. You’ll, uh. You’ll meet a lot more people. Maybe — maybe somebody you could love.”

The world, Cas has learned, doesn’t have to be very big for that to happen.

“I don’t want to.” He knows it sounds childish, but the longer Dean stays here, trying to persuade him to want something different, the more upset he gets.

Dean is taken aback, for a moment, but then he nods.

“Okay. Okay, that’s — yeah, that’s fair, given what you’ve been through. But — maybe that means you should go with Anna.”

Cas stands up from his perch on the bed, walking to the window.

“Fine. I’ll go with Anna.”

“Well, don’t do it because _I_ told you to-”

“I’m not. Samandriel was very nice, but you’re correct that I don’t love him and I’m not going to. At the very least, he deserves better than that.”

There’s silence behind him.

“So do you,” Dean says eventually, and Cas shakes his head.

“There are more worthwhile things than feelings returned, Dean. But yes — if you do find another way, I’d like to go to Anna. Thank you,” he adds, not a little spitefully.

He’s expecting Dean to snap back, but he doesn’t.

“Sure.” Dean’s voice comes out uncharacteristically small, and that vicious, frustrated thing tightly coiled within Cas loosens, as it always does.

He turns, disturbed to see how upset Dean looks, though he quickly tries to school his expression.

“I’m not — I’m not ungrateful,” Cas says hastily, taking a step forward. “I didn’t mean-”

“No, Cas — you’re right. And you don’t _need_ to be grateful. It’s, uh. It’s your decision. And you should get to make it yourself, for once.”

“Still-"

“Still, we should probably stop talking about the future and play some cards,” Dean interrupts, smiling slightly, though it doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

Cas resents it. He wants to talk. He wants to tell Dean exactly why he’s not as happy as Dean seems to think he should be, and he wants Dean to offer him some kind of consolation for it. Some kind of justification for why, though he’s been there for every moment that Cas has, he’s failed to develop similar feelings.

But Cas is beginning to understand that Dean is fragile, in wholly unexpected ways, so he keeps his mouth shut and manages a tense smile of his own.

“Alright. But not poker.”

He swears the look Dean gives him is almost fond.

Mostly, though, it just seems sad.

Two weeks after the candelabra incident, Dean’s rut finally hits.

It’s late, thanks to Tara’s meddling, but as soon as he starts feeling the telltale signs of three-day misery, he saddles up his horse and flees to Bobby’s hunting lodge to jerk off in peace.

It’s not ideal; if the council finds out he _didn’t_ just get a hankering to go shoot at things and fish in the big lake up there, all his efforts at making it look like he was visiting Cas almost every night — in the biblical way — will be for naught. If Dean had thought to prepare, he would have set something up in his bathroom, so Cas could stay in the bedroom without having to deal with all his rut bullshit and they could maintain the illusion.

And maybe he _should_ have tried anyway, but here’s the thing: Dean’s not a complete idiot. Some might argue that point, given how long he thought Cas might try to kill him, but then he remembers there’s some asshole walking around New Eden with a chunk of his eyebrow missing, and then Dean just feels smug, because at least _he_ was smart enough to identify a threat when he saw one, no matter how innocent it looked.

_Anyway_ , occasional stupidity aside, Dean’s at least clever enough to know what has to happen here. The council has to believe he’s trying, in earnest, to knock Cas up. And then they have to have reason to believe that no matter how hard Dean _does_ try, it’s just not gonna happen.

Only then are they going to let Cas go.

So even though Dean knows he can handle taking care of his rut with Cas one room away, without losing control or anything stupid like that — even if it’ll be rough — he also knows that cycles are going to be what tips the scales.

Dean failing to do it after spending a full rut with him will raise some brows.

Dean failing to do it after spending a full _heat_ with him?

Dean wouldn’t be surprised if that’s all it took. The council’s already disgruntled; as much time as Dean spends with Cas, if they were actually throwing down every time, the first heir should be well on its way by now, even if nobody _ever_ had a cycle.

Which means that if Dean secures his little rut fort in the bathroom, and then hides in Cas’s when his heat comes — and it could be coming soon — then . . . that’s it.

Cas goes off to live with Anna, and Dean just sits and waits for the council to bribe someone to take his place.

And then he does his duty, and by the time he’s done, by the time he’s got a couple of kids he’s sure he’ll love but always wish had impossibly blue eyes and dark, messy hair, Cas’ll have a whole new life without any leftover space for Dean.

Dean’s not ready to cope with that, just yet, and he’s apparently too much of a selfish coward to force himself to do it, anyway. So, he hides in Bobby’s cabin and makes himself shoot a couple of pheasants during the gaps, and then he slinks back home and hands them over to the kitchen as evidence.

And then, because in addition to being a lousy human being, he’s _weak —_ he takes a quick bath and heads downstairs to see Cas.

Being away is always hard, and it just gets harder every time; being away and craving someone, except having a very specific ‘someone’ in mind — Dean blames instinct. It’s instinct that makes him feel like he’s been denied something he _needs,_ and instinct that demands the situation be rectified.

When Cas opens the door, he looks upset.

“You didn’t tell me you were leaving.”

It sounds accusatory. Dean sort of wants to throw his arms around him, anyway.

He doesn’t.

“Sorry. I was in a hurry.”

“The birds could have waited another twenty minutes to die,” Cas mutters, but steps back to let him in anyway.

Dean snorts, though the anxiousness is still there, an itch beneath his skin.

“I didn’t really go hunting, Cas. I had my rut.”

Cas stiffens.

“Your rut?”

Dean shrugs. Cas’s weird, blank expression is making him feel self-conscious, all of the sudden.

“Yeah. I had to go take care of it without the council finding out I’d had it, you know?”

The corners of Cas’s lips twitch downward.

“I see.”

Dean could be losing it, but he swears the temperature in the room just dropped a few degrees, though he has no idea why.

“So, how have you b-”

“How do people in the capital have intercourse without getting pregnant?” Cas interrupts, eyes narrowed, and Dean nearly swallows his tongue. “Because everything I’ve heard — as well as your novels — suggests you all do it frequently, without mishap.”

“Oh. Uh. There’s, uh. There’s — you know, stuff, like — like medicine, that makes you not, uh. You know. And then there’s things you can put on your — well, they help make stuff . . . not happen, too, but I don’t know why-”

“Are these — medicines and accessories, difficult to obtain?”

“Uh. Not in the capital, no.”

“Then you should acquire some,” Cas says evenly, crossing his arms. “And take care of your rut here.”

Dean makes a face.

“Oh, God, no,” he says immediately. “Yeah, no way in hell am I having sex with anyone in the castle.”

It’s not that there aren’t a few people he’d have been comfortable doing that with in the past, but he can literally count them on one hand and he’s certainly not hitting them up for rut help when Cas is hanging out just a few floors away. He shudders; just the thought of it makes him feel a little ill.

Anyway, if he didn’t know any better, he might say Cas looks kind of _hurt,_ though it quickly transitions back to irritation.

“Fine. If you insist on — on being _picky_.”

Huh. Weird.

“Something like that,” Dean agrees, trying for cheerful, since Cas seems to be in kind of a foul mood today. “So, you got time to hang out?”

Cas’s jaw tightens.

“I’m in the middle of a book.”

Well, that’s disappointing.

“Oh. Uh. I could borrow one, read it in here?”

Cas hesitates.

And then he lifts his chin.

“Maybe later.”

Jeez, Cas really _is_ in a mood. You’d think _he_ was the one that just got off a cycle.

“Okay. Well. Have someone come get me when you’re ready to go riding or something. I’ve been cooped up in Bobby’s cabin by myself for three days, so any excuse to get out of my room would be nice.”

Of course, he kind of wants to sink into the floor as soon as he’s said it; it was a petty attempt at provoking sympathy, except he forgot he was talking to someone who probably feels that way all the fucking time.

Cas looks shocked, and Dean opens his mouth to apologize.

“You can stay and read,” Cas says quickly, before Dean can. He lowers his eyes suddenly, smoothing an invisible wrinkle on the thigh of his pants. “I’ll send for coffee. Then, um, we can go for a ride.”

Dean blinks.

Honestly, part of him is tempted to say no, just because Cas is being super fucking weird right now, and it might be better to come back once he’s over it so they don’t get into another fight -

But _most_ of him is pretty much desperate for whatever he can get, so he offers Cas a sunny grin and jerks his head toward the bookshelf.

“What do you recommend?”

Cas is a fool.

He doesn’t often think of it, anymore, how much better Anna would have done in this situation — he doesn’t like to, and brotherly affection is not the only thing making the idea repulsive to him, these days — but today, he silently berates himself for somehow getting into this position when someone like Anna most certainly would not.

Dean — _because_ Cas is a fool — is huddled less than two feet away on the bed, engrossed in his book about shapeshifting jungle cats. And while Cas should be similarly occupied, he is not.

No, he is much too busy thinking about how Dean is _two feet away_ on the _bed_ and wondering why on earth he didn’t just propose they sit at the table. He didn’t know sitting on the bed reading would become an entirely different affair when it involved two people. He assumed it would be the same as it is when he does it by himself, that it was the practical choice, because they’d be more comfortable.

Cas is not comfortable.

Cas is not comfortable _at all._

It doesn’t help that until Dean stated otherwise, Cas thought he spent the last three days away being tended to through his rut by someone who was _not_ Cas. It feels ridiculous, now, but Cas experienced a consuming and savage bout of unomegalike rage at the thought of someone else getting all the attendant kisses from Dean when Cas has been furtively pining after them for _months_ now.

In fact, Cas had the ludicrous feeling that those kisses, past being merely desirable to him, actually _belonged_ to him, for reasons he was sure he could soundly lay out, given enough time to organize his thoughts.

And now Cas is stuck, on his bed with Dean some tantalizing number of inches away, thinking about kisses he’s at least clever enough to know he has no chance of getting.

He gives Dean a sidelong look, speculative. Perhaps if he can convince Dean to take him around the rest of the castle — he’s never seen it — they might risk being discovered, at which point the prudent thing to do would be to subject Dean to some number of necessary kisses so it would appear to any unfortunate witnesses that they were just doing what they were supposed to.

Although, Cas doesn’t particularly like the idea of taking his kisses with an audience.

In fact, he dislikes it immensely.

This is a foolhardy plan, he decides grimly, but why would he expect any different? It was conceived of by a _fool._

He stares at the bedspread beyond the pages of his book resentfully. Sam told him to just _ask,_ but Sam is clearly young and not well-versed in the many awful pitfalls of requesting kisses, especially from people as uniquely difficult and prone to fits as Dean. As indulgent as Dean is of him, Dean has seemed . . . _down,_ ever since the candelabra incident — Cas wonders, sometimes, if he’s truly been forgiven entirely, but then Dean will give him one of those rare, soft looks, and Cas will be confused once more — and even Cas knows it’s poor form to make unreasonable demands of people when their mood is already suffering.

And kisses _are_ an unreasonable demand. While Cas may not have actually asked, he’s fairly confident, at this point, that Dean has no interest in kissing him. The only reason Cas ever got any kisses at all was because Dean needed something else from him, and -

Cas sits up, eyes going wide.

Of course. Of _course,_ if Cas wants kisses, he needs to be able to offer something in exchange, something that would make Dean feel good about providing those kisses.

But . . . is Cas willing to do that thing?

The answer, earlier today, would have been a firm ‘no.’ While his desire not to have children he won’t be able to see is in conflict with his desire to stay with Dean in even some distant capacity, it remains much more powerful than his petty wish for kisses.

But if there are reliable methods of preventing such an outcome . . .

Well, Cas wouldn’t know for sure until he’d done it, but maybe it would be worth it?

He straightens, determined. He could ask. He _will_ ask. It’s clear to him, now, that this is no longer a matter he can simply let slide. Kisses are a high-stakes proposal, and one he is, at long last, going to have to make.

He turns to Dean, steeling himself—

And finds Dean watching him with a concerned expression.

“Uh. Everything okay, Cas?”

_No. I want_ _to kiss you_ _and I’m prepared to negotiate_ _for it_ _, but I need more information._

Somehow, the words die in his throat.

“Yes. I, uh. I want more coffee.”

Dean nods slowly.

“Okay.” After a brief pause, he leans forward, giving the coffee pot a small shake. “Looks like we still have some. Half-a-cup of cream and a pound of sugar, right?”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“That would be impossible to fit into the cup. And to drink.”

Dean smirks and tilts the spout over Cas’s mug.

“I’ve seen you do it,” he mutters. Cas presses his lips together.

Dean’s being obnoxious (as is often the case).

Cas would very much still like to kiss him, anyway.

It’s probably just Dean’s imagination, but it feels like Cas stares at him more than ever.

And it’s _definitely_ Dean’s imagination that he stares at his _mouth_ now. Even when Dean isn’t talking. Or looking at Cas.

(Not directly, anyway.)

So, yeah, that — that’s gotta be wishful thinking, right? Because here in Lawrence, someone staring at your mouth the way Dean colorfully imagines Cas does means somebody’s about two seconds away from tackling you to the ground and kissing the shit out of you.

Of course, there’s no way Cas is _actually_ staring at his mouth, and even if he were, it wouldn’t mean the same thing to him, so it’s not anything Dean needs to worry about, especially since he obviously isn’t.

Dean worries anyway.

After all, he _has_ to spend as much time with Cas as possible, for appearance’s sake, but the more time he spends with the Cas, the more he worries that he’s — _projecting_ things.

Things like thinking Cas is looking at his mouth. It’s kind of weird that Dean would suddenly start noticing that, just as his own impulse to kiss Cas is getting increasingly difficult to suppress. And is Cas _staring_ at him, or is Cas just picking up on the fact that Dean can’t help but sneak less-discreet-than-he-thinks glances and looking back, wondering what’s wrong with Dean?

Because the reality is, there’s a _lot_ wrong with Dean. Dean’s a complete fucking wreck, right now. He’s just one big, inarticulate mess of weird feelings and guilty, inappropriate _wanting,_ and it only gets worse every day he has to spend just knowing Cas _exists_ somewhere in the world, never mind right where Dean can see him and scent him and (hypothetically) touch him.

And if Cas hasn’t already, he’s bound to pick up on it, and when he does? He’s going to want it to stop.

Dean’s not exactly sure, at this point, how to do that.

“Hey,” he says one day, carefully prodding the soil around his Forget-Me-Nots. There’s cute green stuff squirming its way out of the ground, and Dean’s pretty excited to see it turn into blue flowers. “If I ever, uh. If I make you . . . uncomfortable, or something, and — and you need me to do something different, just tell me, okay? You can. I mean, you can always tell me, if you need something from me.”

There’s a very weighty-seeming silence behind him, and he turns slightly, wondering if Cas heard him.

Probably; Cas has stopped what he’s doing and is staring at Dean.

He licks his lips.

Dean’s stomach suddenly feels a little funny.

“Oh. What, um, what do you mean by ‘uncomfortable?’” Cas pauses, his full, soft-looking lips parted. “And ‘need’?”

Logically, Dean knows Cas is talking exactly the way he always does — not that his voice isn’t always kind of sexy — but right now, Dean swears it’s gone even _lower,_ rough and full of promise Dean’s imagination wants to just run with, and when it shapes the word ‘need’ -

“Uh.” He swallows, frantically trying to clear his head. “You know. Any kind of uncomfortable. If I’m, uh. Being annoying. Talking too much. Making you feel like I’m . . . bothering you. And as far as needs . . . I don’t know. Doesn’t even have to be a need, honestly. Whatever I — whatever I can do for you, Cas. I will.”

Cas’s tongue darts out, wetting his lips a second time, and it’s almost enough to distract Dean from his embarrassment. How dry can they _be_? Licking them doesn’t even help! It’s just making things _worse_!

(The dryness. It’s making the _dryness_ worse. Dean assumes.)

“Well. You _are_ annoying, sometimes,” he agrees, and Dean winces. “But I’d say I, um, I like it, more than it bothers me.”

Cas looks him dead in the eye the entire fucking time, and from anyone else, Dean would take this as his cue to awkwardly scramble across the lawn and haul him into a kiss.

Dean hastily turns back to the bed of Forget-Me-Nots.

“O-okay. Well, good. That’s — good. Let me, uh, let me know if anything changes.”

He can feel Cas’s eyes on him for an agonizing several seconds after.

Then there’s a sigh.

“Alright,” he says quietly, and Dean hears him turn away again.

They work together in silence, and as seems to happen more and more, lately, Dean feels like there’s something he’s failed to understand.

_Whatever I can do for you, Cas. I will._

For a week, it’s been all Cas can think about.

If Dean hadn’t turned away, then, Cas isn’t sure he wouldn’t have asked; he isn’t sure he wouldn’t have just _taken,_ even if he were ultimately rebuffed.

Dean is just — so very beautiful, and Cas has begun to think the novels _are_ driving him mad, because sometimes he thinks about more than just kissing Dean. He thinks about Dean’s hands on him, the way it felt the night of the festival. He thinks about letting Dean take pleasure from his body, about what it will be like to _give,_ for once, to be the one indulging Dean. He thinks about teeth sinking into skin, leaving marks that tell the world exactly why he will never marry Samandriel or any others like him, and that Dean will never have a queen for reasons much sweeter than Winchester’s customs. He thinks about futures, about knowing what to expect from them, about being able to look _forward_ to them.

He thinks about things he never has before, things he knows are impossible, for many reasons, and despite that knowledge, those thoughts leave him feeling warm and hopeful.

It is, almost certainly, a form of madness.

He wants so badly sometimes he feels sick with it, and it’s amazing to him that Dean can’t see it; and he _knows_ Dean can’t see it, or else he never would have suggested that his company was a burden on Cas, that Cas would have any reason to tell him to stop.

And if he _can’t_ see it — it means he’s not looking for it. Which means he probably doesn’t want at all, let alone the same way Cas does. Cas searches him, daily, for any sign of it, and all he ever finds is Dean’s kindness.

It’s lonely, but some part of Cas thinks it’s lonelier not to want, so he decides he must simply live with it.

And despite those mad, ever-growing desires — it’s increasingly easy to live with.

“Morning, Sunshine.”

Cas startles, coffee nearly sloshing out of the mug, and turns away from where Kate is stripping the sheets to see Dean standing in the doorway, a tentative smile on his face.

“Good morning,” he returns quickly. This is his second cup, already, but perhaps there’s enough left in the pot to coax Dean to sit with him.

He reaches for it hopefully as Kate leans back into view to offer him a good morning as well.

“What brings you here so early?” she adds, which is fortunate, because it means Cas doesn’t have to.

Dean shrugs, leaning against the door jamb, hands tucked in his pockets.

“No training today. Sam and Charlie and I were gonna go into town.”

Kate pauses in her work, shooting him a strangely assessing look.

“Sounds fun,” she offers slowly, and she’s right, though Cas suspects he understands why Dean is here.

“Will I still see you for dinner?”

“What? I mean, yeah, but — I was thinking — you know what would be kinda nice?”

Cas looks at him, at a loss. He wishes Dean would at least come inside and sit down, especially if he’s going to be gone most of the day.

“What?”

“A bench. For the garden. I know the trees are still kinda working up to stuff, but — might be nice for people to be able to sit under them, later. Or even — you and I actually spend a lot of time on the grass, lately. Might be good to have an actual seat, you know?”

Dean’s not wrong; now that he’s been making himself useful with weeding and watering and such, it usually leaves a little time to settle on the grass and watch the sun go down.

Cas’s first thought is to wonder whether a bench will put them closer together or further apart, and he silently reprimands himself for his opportunism.

“It does sound nice,” he agrees, mostly sincere. “Are you going to buy one?”

Dean looks almost — frustrated.

“Well, no. It’s not my garden. You should, though.”

Cas blinks, then sets down his coffee, turning more fully to face him.

“Alright. And . . . when would I do that?”

That wonderful set of shoulders lifts, Dean’s eyes flicking down.

“Today? We’ll put it on the list of stops, if you, uh, if you don’t mind coming along for the rest of ‘em. We’ll probably go to the sweetshop, and check out the bookseller — stuff like that. Could be boring, but-”

“I’d like that,” Cas interrupts, though that’s something of an understatement.

“Yeah?” Dean looks back at him. “We’ll probably be out all day, and — and you maybe should wear a hat, so we don’t get in trouble — but like I said, Sam and Charlie’ll be there, so it won’t just be me, so — I mean, it could be a lot of fun. Maybe.”

“I’m sure it will be,” Cas says, and he is. “When do I need to be ready?”

Dean hesitates, giving him a searching look.

“I’ll come back in about an hour?”

Cas nods.

“I’ll be ready.”

Dean’s quiet for a moment, and then he smiles.

“Sounds good, Cas,” he says softly, and as seems to be the case more often than not, these days, Cas desperately wants to kiss him.

He forces himself to stay put until Dean is gone.

A grinning Kate helps him pick out a powder-blue waistcoat and navy cravat to wear beneath his favorite tan coat, and once she’s wished him happy market-going and set off with the breakfast tray, Cas quickly takes his bath, shaves, and dresses. He’s ready with time to spare — apart from the navy, wide-brimmed hat he’s resigned himself to wearing — and he waits at his table, valiantly attempting to focus on a book until the knock comes.

Dean just sort of looks at him when he answers, eyes flicking across his person in a way that makes Cas want to stand a little taller.

“All set?” he finally asks, gaze settling on Cas’s.

Cas nods.

“I just need my hat.”

He turns to collect it from the table, but Dean catches his hand, stopping him.

“Hey — you, uh, you look really nice. I — I like the waistcoat.”

Cas stares back at him, startled.

“Uh. Thank you. It’s new. From last time Pamela came.”

“Well, it was a good choice. Looks good, since — you know, you have eyes.” Dean pauses, then makes a face. “Those eyes, I mean. Blue eyes. They’re all — everything’s nice.” He coughs, letting go of Cas’s hand and turning away a little. “Right, so just — you grab your hat, and we can head out.”

“Alright."

Cas moves to the table where his hat rests, pulse unsteady. They give much more articulate compliments in the novels, he thinks.

Dean’s are still devastating, at least to Cas.

He carefully sets the hat atop his head and takes a deep breath. When he turns around, Dean is staring, though he quickly drops his gaze, clearing his throat.

“You good?”

“Yes,” Cas says, starting forward, and Dean nods.

And then, after a beat, he offers his hand.

Cas doesn’t hesitate to take it.

“So, Cas and I are just going for a ride, maybe do a bit of gardening. We’ll probably be back after shift change.”

Harry looks up from a book he doesn’t even bother trying to hide, and squints.

“You guys don’t usually go this early,” he says, and Dean hesitates.

“Well. You know. It’s — the weeds are just like, out of control.”

“Huh,” Harry says, looking a little suspicious — and then his eyes fall to Dean and Cas’s joined hands, widening slightly. “Ooh. Going for a ride and some gardening.” He clicks his tongue, giving Dean a knowing look. “I gotcha.”

Dean tries not to sigh.

“Right. Thanks, Harry. Have a good day.”

“Actually, if you guys are gonna be playing in the woods all day, can’t I just take the day off?”

Dean stares.

“No? You need to make sure nobody sneaks up to Cas’s room and hides there or something.”

Harry huffs.

“Come on. What are the odds of that happening?”

Probably about the same as the odds of either Ed or Harry successfully thwarting such an effort, but still.

“Harry.”

Harry rolls his eyes.

“Fine. But I want next Friday off.”

“Dude, this isn’t a negotiation.”

“But this is _boring._ Nothing ever happens! Why can’t your brother or Charlie do it? They spend enough time over here looking for crap from the renovation period, anyway.”

Dean doesn’t even know what to say to that.

“Christ,” he mutters. “Fine, next Friday’s all yours. But Cas and I are going now, okay?”

Slightly mollified, Harry nods, reopening his book.

“Okay. Have fun.”

“Thanks,” Dean says dryly, and quickly tugs Cas past him before he can say anything more.

When they get to the stairwell, Cas squeezes his hand.

“I understand why you feel so vulnerable, now,” he whispers, and Dean nearly trips over a few steps.

“Uh, I don’t feel _vul-_ ”

“The castle guards are _terrible_ at their jobs,” Cas continues seriously, compassion in his gaze, and this time, Dean chokes on laughter.

Somehow, Cas ends up sitting squished between Sam and Charlie on one side of the carriage, Dean moodily sprawled in the center of the bench seat opposite.

“There’s space over here, you know,” he says, for what feels like the fifth time.

Charlie beams, squeezing Cas’s knee.

“I’m good, thanks!” She sighs. “Cas, you’re so _warm._ It’s like snuggling with a giant kitten.”

Cas looks uncertain.

“Thank you? Are you cold, Charlie?”

“Not with you sitting next to me,” she returns cheerfully, and Dean grits his teeth.

He’s allergic to cats, but he’d still really like to know what snuggling with a giant, human one is like.

“You smell way better than a cat, though,” Sam muses blandly, sniffing the air with zero discretion whatsoever, and Dean just — that’s _it._

He shivers as obviously as he can manage.

“You know, _now that you mention it_ , I’m freezing _,_ ” he declares, giving his brother a pointed look, one he hopes communicates how close he is to shoving him out a moving carriage. “Maybe Sammy should come share the war-”

Cas quickly stands.

“If — if I’m unusually warm, I can — I’ll sit next to you,” he says, swiftly shuffling across the little floorspace, half-crouched to avoid brushing the ceiling. He hesitates in front of Dean, at which point Dean realizes he’s still taking up three-quarters of the bench in an effort to convey the expansive nature of his own sullenness.

He hastily shifts all the way to one side, only to immediately curse himself for not sticking to the middle a little more; but then Cas is settling in right next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder, a good foot-and-a-half left on his other side, and Dean’s stomach downright _flutters._

He can’t help himself.

He shoots Sam and Charlie a smug smile.

For some reason, both of them grin smugly right back.

“Is that better?” Cas asks quietly, sounding a little strained, and Dean forgets all about Sam and Charlie’s weirdness, trying not to press into him more firmly.

“Yeah. Much. Thanks, Cas.”

“Of course, Dean.”

Sam and Charlie abruptly start up some nonsense conversation Dean only partially hears, but it’s fine.

Next to him, side warm and scent sweet, Cas doesn’t say anything either.

“So, what do you like?”

Dean’s shoulder is pressed up against Cas’s again, like it was in the carriage, and even if Cas weren’t already overwhelmed by the array of colorful candies in glass jars, the contact would probably render making a decision impossible.

_I like kissing you,_ he nearly says, but Charlie said something about ‘in public’ and Dean doesn’t seem to be aware of how his proximity and attention are affecting Cas, so he swallows the impulse and shrugs.

His coat sleeve brushes along Dean’s.

“I don’t know. When Anna and I were children, we were given chocolate on Easter and Michaelmas.”

“Huh. What kind?”

“I’m not sure. It was bitter, though.”

Dean makes a face.

“Of course it was,” he mutters, then sighs. “ _Well —_ based on how you like your coffee . . .”

He nods at the shopkeeper, then lifts the lid of the jar, using the wooden spoon to scoop out a creamy white rosebud, a dollop of pink in the center.

“Try this.”

Cas hesitates.

“What is it?”

“Filled white chocolate. So, not really chocolate, but it’s disgustingly sweet, so you should like it.”

Cas studies the candy, ignoring the remark.

“It’s pretty.”

“I’d be more worried about how it tastes, man.”

“It seems like a shame to eat something this pretty.”

Dean huffs, though there’s a smile tugging at his mouth.

(Cas thinks he’d rather taste that, instead.)

“Cas. Just eat the damn chocolate, or I’m putting it back.”

Cas sighs, reaching for it.

“Alright.”

Dean proves correct; the candy is incredibly sweet, and the moment Cas’s teeth crack the outer shell, the filling inside melts across his tongue.

But then, Dean is often good at guessing what Cas will like, and the sense of intimacy that gives Cas, even if it’s false, just makes the candy taste sweeter.

“It’s very, very good,” he finally says, futilely running his tongue along his teeth, chasing the taste. “Nothing like what we had before.”

“Yeah?” Dean’s eyes are on his mouth, seemingly fascinated by its motions as Cas finishes off the chocolate. For some reason, he licks his own lips, and Cas has to fight not to mimic it. “That, uh. That’s good. You’ve been missing out.”

“I have,” Cas agrees, suddenly breathless. “What, um. What else have I been ‘missing out’ on?”

Dean’s eyes fly to his, and Cas blinks back at him, puzzled by the shock there.

“What?”

“Is it just this kind? Or is there other candy you think I’d like?”

Dean’s lips part.

And then color floods his cheeks.

“Oh. Oh, uh — yeah. Yeah, there’s — every kind you can think of. And then some. We’ll just — we can try whatever looks interesting.”

“Alright.”

Dean glances back to the jars, rubbing his neck.

“You liked grape juice. Maybe we’ll try some fruity stuff, next.”

“I like fruit.”

“I know,” Dean says, smiling.

Cas smiles back, pleased.

“Show me, then,” he commands, and to his delight, Dean answers by taking his hand again and pulling him along to another wall.

“Cas seems like he’s having fun.”

Dean briefly tears his eyes away from where Cas is crouched in front of a tall wooden bookcase, head tilted as he squints at the spines. The hem of his coat brushes the floor, but Cas is unconcerned, wholly focused on his task.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think he is.” He looks back, smiling. “Except I think the candy he’s taking back to the castle is gonna break the carriage suspension.”

In his peripheral, Sam grins.

“Well, it _was_ his first time in a candy shop, and you gave him free reign.”

“Of course I did. I’m not a monster.” Or he’s trying not to be. “Anyway, some of that’s for his sister. I think he wants me to ship her like, ten pounds of apple candy.”

Dean tries to sound annoyed, but as soon as Cas had wistfully remarked on apples being her favorite — well, what _else_ was Dean going to do but offer to help him send her some? Anyway, Cas had seemed pretty thrilled at the prospect of getting her a gift, and Dean appreciates that Anna writes so often (and he gets to benefit from delivering the letters), so . . . it’s not like it’s a big deal.

Sam perks up.

“Did he get her the kind with the sour fi-”

“Yes, Sammy. And the kind with the cream filling. And the kind with the caramel coating, and the cranberry syrup, etc., etc. _Ten pounds._ I shit you not.”

Sam nods, looking suspiciously satisfied.

“Nice. Anyway . . . were you going to look at books, or . . .?”

Only then does Dean realize they’ve been in the shop for twenty minutes and he’s still standing near the entrance, watching Cas peruse.

He flushes.

“Was worried he wouldn’t see the point in the bookseller, since he still has a ton in his room he hasn’t read. If he wanted to leave early, I didn’t want him to worry about, you know, interrupting anybody.”

Sam gives Charlie a doubtful look, which is fair, because she’s sitting criss-cross on the floor, several pages into one novel with a dozen more piled around her.

“I, um, I don’t know that you being ready will really make a difference.”

Dean makes a face.

“Right, right. I’ll just-” He hesitates, glancing around the shop before ultimately looking back at Cas. “Actually, I’ll go see how he’s doing. Have fun, Sammy.”

He quickly strides over to the shelf Cas is in front of before any unkind heckling can ensue.

“Any luck?”

Cas startles, gaze flicking up to him.

“Uh. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Cas shrugs, looking back to the shelf.

“I’m not sure which one to buy.”

“Whichever ones you want?”

Dean gets a troubled look, at that.

“This is more difficult than deciding what to read. The books in my room — if I don't like one, I can just put it back."

“Well, if you buy a crappy one, you don’t have to read it.”

“But that’s a waste.”

“They’re not that much,” Dean protests. “We can always throw it in the castle library.”

Cas frowns a little.

“What if _no one_ reads it?”

Dean hesitates, then crouches beside him.

“Look. If it sounds good, and you want to try it — just buy it. That’s not a waste. I mean, even if it’s bad, maybe some impulse buys will help the author stay afloat long enough to write something less shitty.”

The frown smoothes a little, a flicker of amusement appearing.

“Generally, when a novel disappoints me, my thoughts for the author aren’t that charitable.”

The words are dry, but that’s definitely a smile threatening to commandeer Cas’s mouth, and Dean will be nothing but jealous if it does.

“Well, I’m not the one reading it, so I can be charitable enough for the both of us.”

“You _are_ the one paying for it, though.”

Which is true, but somehow, Dean feels a little grumpy about its implications.

“Might be my money, but it’s your choice,” he counters. “Which poor bastard are we gonna graciously support today?”

Cas is quiet for a moment.

Then he nods, reaching for a black leather volume, foiled red letters curling down its spine.

“The man is afflicted with an ancient curse of bloodlust, and lives a monstrous existence,” Cas explains, thumbing the cover thoughtfully. “But he ends up undertaking a quest for good, and — presumably — discovers what remains of his better nature.”

“Huh.” Honestly, Dean thinks that sounds kind of terrible, not to mention way outside of Cas’s standard preferences, but he _did_ say it was Cas’s choice. “Sure. I hope you like it.”

Cas nods.

“I hope so, too.”

The bookseller does a double-take when she sees Cas.

“Isn’t that-” she starts, and Dean coughs.

“Just these, please,” he says pointedly, like Charlie and Sam’s mountain of books is ‘just’ anything, but the woman is undeterred, squinting at Cas beneath the brim of the navy hat.

Cas squints back at her, and Dean almost laughs.

“Are the rules changing, then?” she asks bluntly, finally looking to Dean.

Dean hesitates.

“Not exactly. We’re just . . . working around them.”

“Mhm.” After a pause, she shakes her head, opening her ledger and returning her gaze to Cas. “Well. It’s nice to see you, dear. Though in my opinion, you shouldn’t be here in the first place. I thought we’d done away with that nonsense when his Majesty nearly turned down the throne.”

If Dean weren’t so uncomfortable, he’d smile at the reference.

As it stands, though, he steps a little closer to Cas, giving her an even look.

“You weren’t the only one,” he says shortly. “But we’re working on it.”

For some reason, her brows climb.

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” She smirks a little. “Always nice when a son takes after his father in the _good_ ways.”

Dean blinks.

“What?”

She finishes scribbling in the ledger, smoothly shutting it.

“Seventeen pounds and six shillings,” she announces. “And best wishes to you both.”

Still baffled, Dean counts out eighteen pounds from his coinpurse and hands them over.

“Thank you,” he remembers to say, and she gives him an amused smile.

“Enjoy,” is all she says, and once again, Dean is unsettled by the layers to her tone.

It doesn’t help that Cas’s first question when they leave is-

“I’ve been wondering — why doesn’t anyone ever address Dean as a prince?”

Charlie lets out surprised snort, and Sam clears his throat.

“Wow, you know, I’m not really sure, Cas,” he says, in such an innocent, neutral voice, Dean has no choice but to make him be the one to haul all the books back to the carriage.

Dean’s leading them to the stonemason’s, throwing inscrutably grumpy looks over his shoulder all the while, when Cas chances to glance through a shop window as they pass.

He’s not sure what makes him stop; he’s never been a particular fan of hats, or how they look on him, although Anna would mysteriously amass bits and scraps that she fashioned into rather charming head-coverings their mother made her leave at home half the time.

_What does it matter?_ she’d protest. _It’s not like we need to worry I’ll repulse suitors._

_Nor do you need to attract them._ _Stop drawing attention to yourself._

Cas always liked that it never stopped her from trying.

(He also liked that one of those hats sported a beautiful white leather top piece, sometime shortly after Adler had reported an appalling act of vandalism against the seats of his brand new carriage.)

Anyway, Cas never had any such hat-centered inclinations, but when he sees the velvet green hat angled smartly on one of the display’s wooden busts . . .

Charlie stumbles a little when he stops, having been halfway wrapped around one of his arms.

“Sorry,” he says apologetically, staring at it. There’s pleated silk in a darker shade of green around the band, and the brim curls asymmetrically, just a touch. All together it might paint a very solemn picture, except for a delicate sprig of white flowers fixed to the front of the band.

Cas thinks it's — refreshing.

“Don’t sweat it, Cas,” Dean assures him. “That’s just what happens when you try and three-legged race through town.”

“I was just being friendly!” Charlie protests, and Cas absently pats her arm where it’s still tucked around his.

“You’re fine. I enjoy walking with you — I was just admiring the hat.”

They all look to the shop window.

“Oh! Do you want to try it on?”

Cas hesitates.

“I don’t really need a hat,” he points out, and Dean frowns at him.

“You needed one today.”

“Today is an anomaly.” _And eventually, you intend to send me away altogether.  
_

For a moment, Dean is quiet. Sam and Charlie are too, evidently content to wait for his response.

“I — you don’t _know_ that,” he says at last. “And besides — even if you don’t need one now — maybe . . . I don’t know, maybe you want to need one someday?”

Cas tilts his head.

“What?”

Dean looks frustrated.

“When you — for when you’re free. Sometimes it just — it feels good to buy something, as a — a plan, I guess. For the future. You buy it to reassure yourself you’re gonna get to a place where you need it, you know? And it makes you feel good.”

“So . .. . you think I should buy it in case I end up needing it later?” he clarifies, at a loss.

“I mean — kind of, but — also because — it’s like -”

“Have you ever heard of a hope chest, Cas?” Charlie interrupts, and Cas reluctantly looks away from Dean.

“Oh. Yes.”

“It’s like that, except it's not about marriage. Sometimes there’s power in doing something for the future you want, even if you don’t have it yet — like you’re promising yourself you’re gonna get there. And then when you _do_ get there — you’ll be ready!”

“That makes sense,” he says slowly, and it does — certainly, he understands the concept of advance preparation — but he’s still not sure it applies here. When he goes to stay with Anna, he might have to start wearing hats, but they probably won’t need to be pretty green ones.

He might not know exactly what awaits him, but he can be fairly confident in what _doesn’t,_ regardless of what he might like to think about, these days.

“Just — try it on,” Dean interjects. “Even if you throw it out your window tomorrow — it’ll be fun, right?”

“My windows don’t open,” Cas murmurs, studying the hat again. “They have latches, so I assumed they would, but they appear to be sealed.”

There’s an extremely lengthy silence, at that, Charlie’s grip on his arm going slack.

“Fuck,” Dean mutters, and then he stalks forward and jerks his head toward the shop. “C’mon. We’re buying a goddamn hat.”

“It, uh, it looks good.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Cas remarks, frowning at his reflection. He _thinks_ it looks nice, or as nice as any hat is going to, but there’s something off about Dean’s tone and the idea that _Dean_ doesn’t think so bothers him.

He adjusts it a little, letting his fingers linger on the soft felt brim. He can’t help it; even if it doesn’t particularly flatter, he likes the weight of it on his head, the silk lining just brushing his brow. It’s a very well-made hat.

He’s not sure it matches the pale blue waistcoat, but this is his favorite jacket, and he thinks the hat complements it well. If he ever _did_ go out regularly, on expeditions such as this one, even, he thinks the hat could be a very worthwhile purchase.

“What? No, I am. It does. Looks really good, Cas.”

“But?”

“But nothing. Just . . . you know. I also — your, uh, your hair always looks good, too. But the hat is nice.”

Cas looks at him, surprised.

He doesn’t recall soliciting any opinions on his hair, and he doesn’t know what to make of this one.

“You like my hair?” he clarifies, uncertain, and Dean clears his throat.

“I mean. Yeah?”

“It’s a mess, Dean.”

“Yeah, and I like it. It’s the good kind of mess, like-”

Dean abruptly quiets, looking down, and Cas tilts his head, fascinated by the discomfort in his expression.

“Like?” he prompts, and Dean visibly swallows.

“I don’t know. Like somebody just — kissed you within an inch of your life.”

Cas experiences a very peculiar sensation in his stomach, not dissimilar to the ones that tend to accompany a strong desire to kiss Dean.

“And — that’s a good thing?”

Dean’s lips part, though for a moment, nothing comes out.

Then he shrugs.

“Depends on who did the kissing,” he mumbles, and then he turns, stepping back. “Sam! Charlie! Stop dicking around and come tell him his hat looks nice.”

Charlie quickly takes _three_ hats off her single, average-sized head, exchanging a guilty look with Sam beside her, and the pair come over to do just that.

It doesn’t really matter, though; Cas is going to buy the hat.

Cas is going to buy the hat, because he’s decided he _does_ want to think of a future. Wants to think he _will_ need this hat someday, that there exists some version of that future where he stays with Dean and Dean likes him in his hat and when they get back from afternoons out like this one, afternoons that will be miraculously commonplace in their lives together, Dean will take off Cas’s hat and run his fingers through Cas’s hair and kiss him and kiss him and then kiss him some more.

Cas understands what they were trying to tell him, now.

Buying such things isn’t about reality, or about preparing for the future you _expect_ to have.

No, the purchases are as foolish as Cas originally supposed them, because in the end—

It’s just about _hope_.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: references to fishing/gutting and cleaning fish, past abuse (details in notes), discussions of capital punishment (details in notes), non-consensual drugging and abduction (details in notes), please let me know if I missed anything.

In addition to a pretty, curved stone bench that will likely force multiple occupants’ knees to brush, Cas admires the matching little table and an intricate pedestal bird bath while they’re at the stonemason’s.

Dean asks for all three to be delivered promptly, if only because his lack of landscaping experience makes him nervous about sparsely furnishing the garden. You can always take stuff out, if you get carried away, but adding it’s a hassle and these pieces _match,_ so it just makes sense to him.

“I hope you didn’t feel pressured to buy all of these,” Cas says later, the words strained as the pair of them try to arrange the massive, heavy legs of the bench in the probable future shade of an apple tree.

(Dean doesn’t kid himself it won’t have to be moved again.)

“No? Pretty hard to pressure me into things, man.” Jesus _christ,_ the thing weighs like, two hundred fucking pounds. Dean’s a little worried the two of them will have trouble lifting the seat onto the legs, once all is said and done. Maybe he shouldn’t have chased Sam and Charlie off so soon.

Cas gives him a sidelong look, opening his mouth.

Dean grunts as he hefts the leg into place, strictly due to exertion, and Cas’s mouth shuts.

“Of course,” he mutters, and wiggles his own leg the rest of the way into place. “I believe that should do it.”

“Yeah. Round two?”

Cas smiles slightly, and together, they carefully lift the seat.

“Fuck,” Dean pants. “A corpse weighs less, I swear to God. Not to mention it’s easier to _move._ ”

Cas frowns at him, and the seat wobbles precariously in their grasp.

“Dean. I hope you’re not serious.”

Dean licks his lips.

“I am. Maybe even . . . _dead_ serious.”

Cas just sighs.

“We’re buying cushions next time,” Dean decides, about five minutes into the bench’s maiden voyage, and Cas nods, another burst of _bright_ and _sweet_ and _happy_ coming off of him.

It’s a struggle for Dean not to just bury his face in the poor guy’s shoulder.

“We should,” he agrees, thankfully oblivious, and Dean carefully doesn’t think too hard about that, about ‘next time’ and what Cas’s ready agreement to it implies.

“And, uh. Maybe — maybe we could have breakfast here, in the morning. Break in the table, next.”

Cas’s head twitches toward him.

“Breakfast.”

“Yeah. Might have to be earlier than you usually take it, though, so it can wait till dinner, if you don’t wanna get up.”

Cas shakes his head.

“No. No, I’m — early is fine. I don’t sleep that late.”

“Oh. Awesome. Maybe — I could stop by around seven? Sun should be up, by then, so it won’t be too cold.”

“That’s fine. And . . . by all accounts, I’m rather warm.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t help _me._ ”

The corners of Cas’s mouth pull down.

“It did earlier, if I recall.”

Dean shrugs.

“Enclosed spaces, Cas. If it’s a cold morning, half of me is gonna be an icicle, no matter how close to you I sit.”

At that, Cas just looks thoughtful.

“Alright. Then — ‘enclose’ the space, Dean.” He pauses. “Bring a blanket.”

Which sort of makes it sound like Cas is proposing they effectively _cuddle_ underneath a _blanket,_ and Dean just has to pray that shock and a well-directed breeze are preventing his scent from doing anything too noticeably untoward.

“Huh.” He clears his suddenly very, very dry throat. “Not a bad idea. I’ll do that.”

Dean hopes it’s fucking _freezing_ tomorrow morning.

“Pantry,” Kate grunts, head buried in her arms on the end of the counter, where she’s dragged a stool to perch on. “Third shelf from the top.”

Cas quickly retrieves the ground cinnamon and returns to his small, distant section of countertop, guiltily surveying the spread of ingredients while the morning staff bustles around the rest of the kitchen.

“I’m sorry to have asked you to do this,” he says again, still wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have.

She lifts her head, waving a hand, and Cas is relieved to see a smile.

“I’m happy to, Cas.” Her smile fades a little. “But if this one ends up on the floor, _I’m_ making the next pie, and then I’m throwing it at him while it’s still hot.”

Cas grimaces.

“Please don’t. You could hurt him very badly.”

“That’s the idea,” she mutters, and then shrugs. “I think it’ll be fine. If you’re all set, though, I might take a wee Kate-nap.”

“Of course. I’ll wake you when it’s done.”

She gives him a thumbs up and then curls back over her folded arms, and Cas experiences a fresh wave of guilt.

He tries not to think of it much, but sometimes he can’t help himself; he _hates_ that he can’t just go where he pleases, without always having to force someone to go with him.

There’s nothing to be done, though; the best he _can_ do is try to move as quickly as possible without sacrificing precision.

The pie comes out of the oven at half past six, and Kate curls up at the foot of his bed and naps some more while he gets ready.

“I’m sorry for the trouble,” he says again, when Dean’s nearly due to knock and a yawning Kate is straightening out her apron, ready to go oversee the addition of the pie to the breakfast tray. “I truly appreciate it, though.”

“You’re _fine_ ,” she assures him. “I hope you have a good time.”

“I think I will.” Unless Dean’s not really done being afraid of poison, there’s no reason why Cas shouldn’t enjoy this as much as he has everything else, lately.

Especially if it’s _cold,_ he thinks, a little thrill rising in him. He took an absurd satisfaction in the idea of keeping Dean warm in the carriage yesterday, and he’s looking forward to experiencing it again.

(The closeness is, of course, an added bonus, though he’s worried not kissing Dean will be an even greater test of willpower without Sam and Charlie sitting across from them.)

She slips out a couple minutes before Dean arrives.

“Morning, Cas,” he says with a grin, a little quieter than his usual greetings, like he’s conscious of the early hour, though it shouldn’t matter; it’s not like anyone else resides in these rooms.

Anyway — Cas likes hearing Dean wish him good morning. He shouldn’t, because he already gets most evenings and a fair number of afternoons, these days, but a part of him can’t help but hope this is something he’ll end up getting used to, too.

“Good morning, Dean.”

Dean’s smile is soft, eyes warm, and Cas imagines he can tell Dean was sleeping not very long ago.

Cas likes how that looks on him.

“I saw Kate on my way up. Isn’t it kind of early for her?”

Cas lifts his shoulders, both unwilling to spoil the surprise and a little preoccupied with the faintly rough quality to Dean’s voice, presumably another byproduct of the early morning.

“Yes.”

“Huh.” Dean blinks, then yawns a little. “Well, alright. Shall we?”

Cas hesitates, hopeful, and sure enough, Dean offers his hand.

Cas grasps it firmly, and just barely resists the urge to use it to pull him closer for a different sort of greeting entirely.

Breakfast goes well, Cas decides.

The sun is halfway up, already warming the garden by the time the table is set, but Dean insists on tucking a thick quilt around them, anyway.

It makes maneuvering utensils difficult, but Cas can’t bring himself to complain.

“. . . anyway, the first time we took Sammy out, he was still too little to really manage a rod, so we put him in charge of watching the fish bucket. Of course, the kid had some opinions about the whole fish-murder thing, and behind us, he’s just quietly leaning over the dock to let ‘em back in the water as soon as we’ve thrown them in the bucket. Like, we caught on after the first few, when one of them made a big splash, but — man, Bobby’s face.” Dean chuckles. “Sam still doesn’t like to go.”

Cas smiles slightly at the fondness in Dean’s gaze, warm and a pleasant sort of far away.

“I sympathize.”

“Yeah? You ever go fishing?”

“Of course. My father and I went, until I presented.”

Dean nods, tossing an entire piece of bacon in his mouth.

“Not a fan, huh?”

Cas looks down, shrugging.

“Not really. The first time-” He hesitates, wondering if it’s something he should really share. Dean always tells him stories, and he usually tries to get Cas to reciprocate, but — Cas doesn’t have much in the way of fun stories, not like Dean does.

He doesn’t think Dean will like hearing most of them, any more than Cas likes thinking of them.

“The first time?” Dean echoes, nudging him a little.

Cas takes a deep breath.

“I was okay catching them. I don’t think I realized what it meant. But when the bucket was full, and it was time to gut and clean them — I understood, then. I cried. My father was angry with me, of course — I was a boy, and too old to cry, either way — so I — he made me do the whole bucket, by myself. And then he made me wait out on the shore until I stopped crying.” Cas huffs a laugh. “I missed dinner, and I had to walk back home in the dark. Anyway — I dreaded going, after that, although I did eventually get used to it.”

There’s silence beside him.

And then an awful burst of scent, acrid and unpleasantly dense, fills Cas’s nostrils. He practically chokes, glancing at Dean in alarm.

Dean looks some terrible combination of furious and devastated.

“Cas . . .”

Cas suppresses a sigh. _This_ is why he tries to avoid answering Dean’s questions about New Eden, or the life Cas had there; it invariably tends to upset him.

“If you’re done eating, I have a surprise for you,” he offers quickly, anxious to make it stop.

Dean withdraws a little, his expression twisting in confusion.

“What?”

Cas reluctantly scoots away from him, shaking off his half of the blanket to clear part of the small table so he can replace it with the covered pie tray waiting on the ground. There’s a sliver of apprehension as he does so, the memory of last time tugging at his mind, but he hopes the fear is unwarranted.

He grasps the top handle of the cover, nervously lifting it.

“This is . . . I — this morning, I thought, since last time . . .”

He trails off. Somehow, Dean looks even _more_ upset.

Cas should have known; no matter how much Dean may typically like pie, Cas being the one to provide it appears to be a cursed endeavor.

“Dean?”

Dean swallows, finally looking at Cas.

“You made me another one?” he croaks out, and all Cas can do is nod, at a loss.

Briefly, Dean’s eyes close.

“Cas,” he mumbles when they open, and after a moment of staring, he ducks his chin, hand covering his face. “You — I don’t -”

Cas waits, but nothing further comes, and his heart sinks a little.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, and Dean stiffens.

“Don’t be. Don’t — don’t ever be. I’m just — I’m, uh. I’m really happy, Cas. I don’t deserve to be, but I am.” Dean clears his throat, finally looking up. “Mind if I try some?”

“Of course not. It’s for you, after all.”

Dean lets out a vaguely despairing laugh.

“Please tell me you’re not sick of it after eating two weeks’ worth of failures, again.”

“What? Oh. No, I’m going to have some,” Cas assures him. “I wouldn’t have made more than one this time, at any rate. In case you were unreasonable again.”

Dean gives him a long, inscrutable look, and then he nods.

“Okay, Cas. Why don’t you, uh. Sit down and put on the blanket. I can serve us.”

Cas frowns.

“I made it for you. I should do it.”

Dean shakes his head slightly, just looking at him.

“Cas. Please let me.”

Cas can’t bring himself to deny him, when he asks like that.

He rearranges himself on the bench again, making sure to leave a welcoming pocket for Dean to settle back into, and Dean silently cuts into the pie and scoops two slices onto their waiting plates.

Cas accepts his, and wonders if it would be rude to take a bite first, just to be sure — but then Dean is sitting down, staring at the slice on his plate like one might watch all their earthly belongings be consumed by fire, and Cas instinctively reaches out, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Dean?”

Dean flinches.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough, though Cas thought it lost the traces of sleep shortly after they’d come down. “Sorry.”

He picks up his fork, hand shaking a little, and Cas begins to wonder if he _is_ afraid it’s poisoned. But Dean doesn’t hesitate to lift the bite to his mouth, lips closing around it, and Cas dismisses the thought. As distraught as Dean clearly is, Cas doesn’t sense any fear. He’s worried about whatever it _actually_ is — perhaps a story about gutting fish was not the ideal prelude to dessert — but it isn’t that, at least.

Dean chews slowly, gaze fixed on his plate, and when he’s finished, he seems to struggle to swallow.

Cas’s heart sinks.

“Is it bad?”

Dean quickly shakes his head, and finally, he looks at Cas.

Cas is startled to see tears in his eyes.

“Best pie I ever had, Cas,” he whispers, and Cas blinks back, stunned.

Dean looks like he’s barely managing not to cry.

And Cas thinks back, then, to all the times his father scolded him for his tears. _Men don’t cry,_ he’d heard, countless times, and he doesn’t doubt Dean’s father probably told him the same. Even now, occupying some distasteful grey area of gender, Cas is ashamed when he does cry.

But Dean — much as Cas aches to see them, he can’t help it.

Dean’s tears are beautiful, in their way. It doesn’t seem right to forbid them.

He reaches out before he can stop himself, thumb brushing Dean’s cheek, ready to catch whatever falls.

“I’m glad,” he whispers.

He thinks he feels Dean’s lips brush his hand before Dean finally turns back to his plate, but no more is said.

Dean walks Cas back up after breakfast, and leaves for training with deep reluctance.

Cas baked him a pie. Except — Cas baked him a pie months ago and Dean threw it on the floor and accused Cas of being a cold-blooded murderer, and today -

Today Cas made him another one, anyway.

Cas, after everything that’s happened to him, before and after he presented, before and after Dean stole him away — Cas is _here._ And he smiles — laughs — looks at Dean’s friends with fondness — reaches out to Dean in comfort — and — and he baked Dean a fucking _pie_.

There’s this kind of person, alive in the world, somehow right by Dean’s side even if it’s only for a little while longer, and at times like these, Dean finds himself disbelieving and overwhelmed.

And this morning, more than ever, leaving Cas feels _unfinished,_ like things unsaid and undone and Dean, as always, failing to act as he ought.

How can he know, though? He’s never known anybody like Cas, never felt like this before, and certainly not in this situation.

How the hell is he supposed to know what to do about it? About _any_ of it?

“I’ll be back this afternoon so we can go riding,” he promises, though he still feels a little shaken.

Cas looks back at him like he knows.

“I look forward to it, Dean,” he says gently. “Have a good training session.”

“Thanks. I’ll try.”

Dean’s not sure how much longer he stands there, just staring at Cas, but Cas patiently stares back and eventually, Dean finds his feet.

“Later,” he mumbles, and forces himself to turn around and go.

Still — he takes a detour, before he heads for training.

He figures it’s the least he can do.

“So . . . that was fun. Going out with Cas yesterday.”

Dean almost laughs. Talk about an _understatement_.

“Yeah, Sammy, it was.”

“I think it was good for him, too,” Sam adds. “I know you’ve kind of been . . . trying to make up for things, so — for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing it right, these days.”

Dean keeps walking towards the castle for a moment, not quite sure how to answer that.

Because yeah, he _has_ been trying, but . . .

“Honestly? I think I did that more for me than for him,” he admits, and Sam throws him a troubled look.

“What do you mean?”

Dean shrugs, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“I don’t know. I just — I wanted more. I _want_ more, before — before we’ve gotta . . . you know. Say goodbye.”

Sam looks taken aback.

“C’mon,” Dean mutters. “His heat’s due soon. This is great and all, but — we’ve got a couple more months, tops.”

Dean doesn’t look at his brother, but he swears he can _hear_ the walking frown next to him.

“And you’re sure you _have_ to say goodbye?” Sam asks eventually, and Dean nearly stops short.

“What? Uh, yeah? There’s no way around it, Sam. As it is, we’ll be lucky if they just let him go.”

“But-”

“But nothing. Even if we get the best-case scenario and he goes without a fuss — you think they’ll let him come back to visit? You think he’ll _want_ to?”

“I mean — yeah? He has friends here.”

“Not like he had a lot of other options.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sam sniffs. “Anyway . . . it’s not _that_ unlikely, is it? Now that you’ve stopped being a dick — I don’t know, Dean. I think he likes it here. Better than he liked New Eden.”

Dean’s stomach flips unpleasantly.

“Dude, literally _anything_ is better than that. It’s not a useful comparison.”

“ _Still_ -”

Dean huffs.

“Sam. Look. I get it. _Trust me,_ I do. I’m-” He hesitates. “I’m attached to him, too. Like you wouldn’t believe. But this — none of this ever should have happened in the first place. And if I hadn’t been such a coward, hadn’t just — rolled over and accepted orders — it wouldn’t. So as much as we might wanna keep him . . . we can’t. We’ve gotta let him go.”

Sam just looks incredibly frustrated.

“If it hadn’t ever happened, he’d still be in _New Eden,_ Dean. Yeah, okay, this sucked, too, but — we’re trying for his best-case scenario, right? I’m just saying — maybe we need to think a little harder about what that actually is.”

“Why? Cas and I — we’ve talked about this. He wants to go with Anna.”

“ _Really_.”

“Yeah? What, did you think he’d marry that dumb kid from the North?” Dean scoffs, determinedly ignoring the lingering terror that Cas will do just that. “No way. He loves his sister to pieces, and that way, once he’s settled in, he can — he can, uh. You know.”

Sam screws up his face.

“What?”

Dean swallows.

“Whatever else he wants.”

Despite the clear logic Dean’s laying out here, Sam still looks like he got shoved face first into a pile of horse manure.

“Right,” he mutters, but at this point, Dean doesn’t have much energy to care.

Besides; it’s not really something he wants to _think_ about, let alone discuss in detail.

“Anyway.” He clears his throat. “Even if it’s not for very long — I was gonna send Ash up while we’re out tonight, have him see what he can do.”

Sam looks briefly confused, and then his expression darkens.

“Good. That — it’s not right.”

Dean snorts.

“And the rest of it is?”

Sam, of course, doesn’t have a lot to say to that.

“The bookseller, yesterday,” Cas starts later, gaze carefully trained on the shrubs. “She disapproved.”

Dean apparently doesn’t need to ask for clarification, which is good. A part of Cas still isn’t sure he won’t regret asking, but the root of all his bliss and grief alike seems to lay in the tradition that brought him here, and some part of him wants to understand. Even when it was Anna, what feels like a lifetime ago — Cas wanted an explanation.

But especially now, with a hat he wants a reason to wear and a pie recipe Dean nearly cried over, a recipe Cas is terrified he’ll never need again, Cas can’t help but feel like an explanation is _owed_ to him.

(And if a part of him hopes the key to a _better_ solution might be found alongside it, well — it’s doubly worth the effort.)

“Yeah.”

“Anna . . . in her letter to you, she indicated many of your people did.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Dean mumbles. “It’s not like _I_ was happy about it.”

At last, Cas looks at him.

“Why does Winchester do it, then?”

Dean shrugs.

“’Cause we always have.”

“Not always.”

“Well, no. But for a long time. And based on what _you’ve_ said, it sounds like you guys are still up to the same old tricks.”

Cas’s brow creases.

“The same old tricks?”

“Come on. The bullshit that started all this.”

For a moment, Cas doesn’t know how to answer.

“What did start it?” he asks finally. “Why does Winchester take us?”

Dean looks incredulous.

“ _Seriously_? They give you guys up and they don’t even tell you?”

“Not specifically. We made a stand, and this — this is a punishment.”

“A _sta-_ ” Dean huffs. “Okay, look. This tradition is shitty, there’s no getting around that, but come _on._ There’s a reason it started.”

Patiently, Cas waits for Dean to finally get around to actually telling him what that reason was.

“So, way back when, you guys are kind of an isolated town way, way up North. Nobody really has too many questions about that, you know, people settle where they settle, and the traders who do go there bring back tales of beautiful omegas and strapping alpha firstborns. Fairytale stuff, right? But then one day, a Duke takes a wrong turn and ends up riding straight into New Eden just in time to witness a stoning.”

“We don’t have stonings,” Cas protests, and Dean makes a face.

“Yeah, because you’re not _allowed._ It’s barbaric. Don’t get me wrong, we still have the occasional execution for really serious stuff, but people don’t like it, and when we do, we try and make it as quick and painless as possible. We’d never stone a fifteen-year-old girl to death, period, never mind for basically _hugging_ someone.”

Cas blinks.

“And . . . that’s what happened?”

“Yeah. The Duke and his traveling party were horrified, obviously, and they put a stop to it, but the town fought it. And the stoning’s just one thing — these fuckers were basically mating off their kids on presentation. Even back then, Winchester said you had to be seventeen. It just — the whole thing was fucked up like you wouldn’t believe.”

Cas thinks of Adina, confined to her house and ‘lost to flu’ three weeks after the incident with David, who himself only reappeared a month later, half-starved from a supposed wasting illness.

Cas doesn’t think David would have ever mated after that, even were he still allowed to.

“I probably would,” he murmurs. “I’m still not sure what you ended up doing is any kind of solution.”

Dean sighs.

“No. No, it — it obviously wasn’t. But — we ended up having to send knights. The town put up a huge fight; said their children, especially their daughters, were their property, and what they did with ‘em wasn’t anybody’s business. Which — even if they weren’t being shitty to them, we’re all property of the _king,_ Cas. If he says you’re not allowed to deny your kid sweets after dinner, then that’s just how you start parenting.”

Cas lifts his brows.

“Has one of your kings-”

“Cas. It’s a metaphor. The point is — they were breaking all kinds of laws and then they directly challenged the king’s authority, so long story short — Winchester crushes the rebellion, institutes the audits to keep track of all the matings and deaths and stuff, and then . . .”

“And then you started taking some of us.”

“Property disputes,” Dean says weakly. “For what it’s worth — they figured you guys would fight it, at some point. If even one of you kicked up a fuss, for the girls’ sake, instead of self-righteous dickishness — we’d stop.”

Cas wishes he’d known, else he would have done so the moment the council told them it would be Anna.

“That seems like a cheap justification,” he says honestly, and then he can’t help but think of Anna’s letter. “You make it sound like Winchester was morally in the right, but — the girls you take are as innocent as the ones you supposedly wanted to defend. I don’t — I don’t understand how they thought that could fix anything.”

Dean shrugs.

“It was a long time ago. Honestly — with that, even now — I think it stopped being about the girls and started being about Winchester’s might. Besides — most people thought it was a pretty good deal for them, trading in a weird cult in the middle of nowhere for a life of luxury at the Gardens.”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“Well, it doesn’t seem like a ‘good deal,’ to me.”

“No,” Dean agrees readily, looking pained. “It doesn’t.”

“Then why don’t you _stop_ it?”

Dean shrugs helplessly.

“I told you, Cas. I even told that kid from the carriage accident. I _can’t._ Someday, maybe, but — not now.”

Cas grits his teeth, frustrated, though he takes some comfort in knowing he might be the last one.

It doesn’t help him, now, though, or any of the omegas who came before him. No, he won’t end up at the Gardens, cut off from his children, but -

In a way, Winchester still takes everything.

“She mentioned your father.”

Dean gives him a tired look.

“Yeah, she did.”

“What about him? Why doesn’t he do something?”

Dean shakes his head.

“Because it doesn’t really matter to him.”

“So he could if he wanted to.”

“Yeah, Cas, he could — but it’ll be a big fuss and it doesn’t really affect him, one way or the other. He has no good reason to fight over it.”

“No good reason,” Cas echoes, and Dean winces.

“I mean — for him.”

“And I suppose, being from Winchester, it being ‘the right thing,’ isn’t good enough.”

Dean’s silent for a long, tense moment, and then he buries his face in his hands.

“Cas,” he mumbles. “I’m doing the best I can. And trust me, if — if my mom were still alive, she — she-”

His voice breaks, and after a moment of surprise, Cas scoots closer, kneeling beside him.

“Your mother? What could she have done, that you and your father can’t?”

Dean shakes his head.

“She was gonna be on the council,” he mutters into his hands. “It would have been a big deal — Tara’s one thing, but Mom was a beta. Still — she would have.”

Cas is astounded that the power of a queen seems to be less than that of a councilmember, but even if she’d been the latter-

“As I understand it, just one person on the council isn’t enough.”

Dean takes a deep breath, lifting his head. His eyes are rimmed red when they meet Cas’s.

“No, it’s not, or else we’d just talk to Bobby and be home free. But that was before. My dad — man, he was so in love with her. I think it started with the council position, you know, he wanted to keep her close, but — well, he decided that wasn’t enough for him. Showed up for his coronation, all dressed up in the King’s dumb ceremonial wear, looking for all the world like he was ready to take his vows — and then he didn’t.”

Cas stares.

“But he’s king now-”

Dean smiles slightly.

“Well, yeah. He didn’t have a brother, and he said he’d renounce if they didn’t let him marry her. Knelt to her instead of the throne and everything,” he adds, and there’s a softness in his eyes that makes Cas’s chest feel tight. “Winchester does love a good romance.”

Cas supposes that would explain the sheer number of novels devoted to the subject.

“Anyway . . . if she were here — you know, I don’t think she could stand it. Think she’d probably threaten to go _with_ you to the Gardens before she’d let us do this.” His shoulders slump. “And then — yeah, Dad’d do something.”

“She sounds wonderful,” Cas offers, unsure, but it’s the wrong thing to say. Dean’s expression crumples.

“She was. She — God. She’d be so fucking disappointed in me, right now.”

“Dean . . . you’re trying. How many kings before you didn’t?”

“That’s a low fucking bar, Cas. I — I’m trying _now,_ but I let it happen. And then I — hell, even _Sam,_ if he’d been older than me — he’d have just run away before he ever went and got you in the first place. I’m a piece of shit, man.”

Cas presses his lips together. Perhaps Dean isn’t wholly cooperative in the way Cas would like, but Cas’s wants aren’t exactly _reasonable._

No, regardless of how he started out — for the situation, Dean is doing as much as anyone could expect.

“Hardly. You — like I said, Dean. You’re trying. You’re trying to do what you’re supposed to, what you _should,_ but you’re not always sure what that is, and you’re afraid of failing.”

“No shit. It’s not an excuse, not for anything.”

“Perhaps, but it’s not meaningless, either.” Cas hesitates, and then he reaches out, taking both of Dean’s hands, the way Dean had done for him after Cas had finally explained his scars. “You’re good, Dean. And even when you aren’t — you’re trying to be. That — at least to me, that is significant. And you should hold onto it.”

Dean just looks at him, a disconcerting blend of misery and _hope_ in his face.

And then he lowers his head again, this time resting it against their joined hands.

“Cas,” he whispers, and takes a deep, uneven breath.

Cas waits.

He waits and waits, as still and quiet as he can, but whatever Dean intends to say, he apparently changes his mind.

Still — this time, Cas is sure that’s Dean’s mouth, brushing feather-light across his knuckles, before Dean finally sits up and lets him go.

“Hey — how, uh. How about a bedtime cup of tea, when we get back?” he mumbles, wiping at his eyes, and Cas curls his empty hands, disappointingly cold without Dean’s grasp to warm them.

“I’d like that,” Cas says honestly.

They work in heavy silence, and more than ever, Cas wishes certain things were different.

None of them are the things they probably should be.

Cas cuts their time short today, hopeful that a change in scenery and a soothing cup of tea — or even two, depending on how long he can get Dean to stay — will settle them both.

Dean is clearly still troubled, and much as Cas wants to fix that, he can’t deny that he is, too. He takes _some_ heart in thinking that whatever happens here, this will be the end of it. There will be no more sacrifices or disappointed hopes for the omegas of New Eden, and that — that is not nothing.

But that future is some time away, and it doesn’t really affect the here and now. It doesn’t change that he’s running out of time, and that as good as things can be, tasting sweets in town and breakfasting in the garden, there are these moments, moments where Cas is disappointed and Dean is sad and they’re both bitter and frustrated and feeling just a little bit more hopeless than usual.

In any case, Dean doesn’t offer his hand on the walk up, and Cas isn’t brave enough to take it himself, and by the time they reach Cas’s door, Cas is still at a loss as to what to do. He supposes he’ll just have to hope the tea works its magic.

Still — he’s more content to sit in silence with a troubled, pensive Dean than to go without entirely, at this point.

The worry and resignation fade to the background the moment he opens the door.

Cas tidied his tools and led Dean back to the castle just as the sun had begun to set, and with the drapes opened in full, the room is bathed in warm, golden light.

It’s not an unfamiliar sight, for Cas.

No, what’s unfamiliar is the fresh, late-summer breeze that hits his face as soon as he steps into the room.

It takes him a moment to speak, Dean still hovering in the hall behind him.

“I thought they didn’t open.”

And he would know; he’d certainly tried enough times.

“They didn’t. I, uh. I had Ash come take a look at ‘em.” Dean clears his throat. “Just, you know. Promise me you won’t like, jump or anything.”

Cas stares at the bright, open rectangles along the wall for another stunned moment before the words register and he turns.

“Why would I jump?” he asks, and though Dean smiles slightly, the relief in his face is unmistakable. Cas supposes that’s fair. A month after he got here, he’s not sure he wouldn’t have been tempted.

Now, though . . . if anyone wants Cas gone, for any reason, he’s beginning to think they’ll have to forcibly remove him. Otherwise, he’s not leaving unless Dean, specifically, commands him to.

“Anyway . . . I know it’s probably not gonna be for much longer — even if you weren’t, uh, leaving, summer’s about over, but — better late than never, right?”

Cas deflates a little at the reminder, but he nods.

“Thank you.”

Dean looks uncomfortable.

“Don’t — don’t thank me. I — if I’d known, I would have done something sooner.”

Cas shrugs.

“It was low on my list of concerns.”

He takes another lungful of bright evening air — perhaps it should have been higher on that list, after all — and walks over to the bell.

“Would you like to read while we wait?”

Dean hesitates, then finally comes inside.

“Sure,” he says, and carefully shuts the door behind him.

Cas takes their books off the nightstand and settles on the bed, waiting for Dean to join him. He’s still not used to it, the closeness, the almost overwhelming sense of _awareness,_ but a perverse part of himself has come to enjoy the frustration, in some ways.

(Sometimes, Dean sprawls out, and an elbow or knee will just barely brush along Cas’s side.)

For a long moment, Dean just looks at him.

There’s a worrisome tightness to his expression, and Cas wonders if this is a bad plan, after all.

Then Dean sighs, rounding the bed, and settles in beside him. He sits criss cross, and after a beat, Cas mimics him, deliberately letting his knee bump against Dean’s, though he feels foolish doing it.

Dean flinches.

“Sorry.”

Dean shakes his head.

“You’re good, Cas,” he says quietly. “Just startled me.”

Cas nods, and after another strange moment of eye contact, he reaches for his book.

He tries, a little, to make conversation while they drink their tea, but Dean clearly wasn’t paying attention to his own novel and he’s improved very little, seeming to get distracted in the middle of his own sentences, a faint crease in his brow and trouble in his gaze. Even without that, Cas occasionally scents his distress, and he can’t help it; it makes him anxious.

He decides against a second cup, concluding that the best thing is probably for Dean to go to bed, though as always, he’s reluctant to say good night.

“When will I see you tomorrow?” he asks, once he’s walked with Dean to the door. He’s a little worried the answer will be ‘you won’t.’ Days like that happen, even if they’re rare now.

Dean hesitates.

“Maybe I could stop by for lunch?”

“I’d like that,” he says, relieved.

Dean nods slightly, but he’s still looking at Cas, and this close, nearly sharing the doorway, the bitter tinge to his scent is unmistakable. Cas isn’t sure how long they stand there, watching each other, before Dean takes a deep breath.

“I know — we’ve talked about this, and I’ve told you — I’ll find a way. I just — I want to make sure you believe that.”

“I do,” Cas says, although he’s too old to pretend the possibility of failure doesn’t exist.

Dean’s mouth tightens.

“Cas.”

“I do,” Cas repeats. “But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared for everything.”

Dean shakes his head.

“No. Don’t be prepared for this. You — you’re not going to the Gardens. I swear, Cas. And if you do, I — I’ll go with you.”

It takes a moment for Cas to process the words, and when he does — his heart kicks violently, something bright and overwhelming rushing through him, making his legs suddenly unsteady.

He can’t help himself. It’s wrong, it’s _so_ wrong, but he thinks of that, of having Dean all to himself at the Gardens, and he experiences a wild thrill of _anticipation._

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he says gently, mouth dry, though really, he’s telling himself.

“Right. Just — as long as you know.” Dean takes a deep breath, looking pained, oblivious to the vastly inappropriate fantasies brewing in Cas’s mind. “Okay. Uh. Then . . . good night, Cas.”

He stays still, though, green eyes soft and cast gold in the light from the candles as he looks at Cas.

And Cas means to say good night, means to let him go — but he _can’t_.

He can’t find any words at all.

He moves, no more able to control himself than he is to speak, and tilts his chin up, softly pressing his mouth to Dean’s.

Dean makes a startled sound.

“Cas?”

“Sorry,” Cas whispers, but he’s not. He wants to touch Dean. He wants even more than that, wants to lay claim to a future king, wants what a noble lady of Winchester had — wants Dean willing to kneel to a different sort of power, wanting Cas above all else.

Wanting Cas the way Cas wants him.

“Why — why did you do that?” Dean stutters, eyes wide and dark, and Cas just shakes his head.

“Good night, De-”

He doesn’t get to finish. Dean’s hands stop him, tugging him back in, and _finally,_ Dean’s mouth is pressed firmly against his own, desperate and sweet and presumably driven by nothing but his own desire. He threads his fingers through Cas’s hair, and Cas shivers in his grasp, thinking about that, about how Dean said he liked it unruly and wild, _like somebody just kissed you within an inch of your life._

He wonders if Dean will still like it, when it’s the truth.

Too soon, Dean breaks away, panting as he stares at Cas.

“Oh, God — Cas — you . . .”

“Yes,” Cas whispers, hands chasing after him, gripping his shoulders—

“No, you — you should go to sleep.”

Cas blinks, stilling.

If Dean is done kissing him, Cas should respect that. And he does, but—

He wants more kisses, anyway.

(Maybe he does belong in Winchester, with the brutish heathens, after all.)

Dean blinks, sucking in a breath, and suddenly he’s kissing Cas again, hands sweet and rough against his skin as Cas ruthlessly kisses back.

“I’ll find a way out,” Dean mumbles, breathless and muffled by Cas’s mouth. Cas just kisses him harder, tries to swallow the words, to destroy them and all the potential they hold, because that is _not_ what Cas wants from Dean, and a part of him hates Dean for trying anyway.

_Find a way to keep me,_ he thinks.

He lets the words dissolve on Dean’s own tongue.

Dean lies awake in a daze, even hours after he’s pried himself away from Cas at the door, a crow alighting noisily on the window sill like some omen of good sense, reminding him that there are still lines, important ones, that he really shouldn’t cross.

Cas looked resentful, when Dean made himself leave. The image sticks in his brain, soft, chapped lips red and full from Dean’s working against them, blue eyes dark and hair irrevocably fucked, pure _want_ etched in every line of his face.

Really, Dean should just be proud of himself for making it back to his own room, even if he’s not going to be getting any sleep in here, either.

Because Cas kissed him. Cas kissed him, Cas kissed him, _Cas kissed him._ Cas could be kissing Kate, could be kissing Charlie, could be kissing Sam, could be letting Pamela slip into his bedchamber to show him some of the world’s great wonders because Ed is about as useful as a breadstick in a swordfight, but — Cas kissed _Dean_ tonight.

And that doesn’t mean he won’t marry the brat from the North, or that he won’t settle down with his sister, never to be heard from by Winchester Castle ever again, but — but there’s _something._ Something made him kiss Dean tonight, and Dean doesn’t know what it was or if it’s really okay for it to be there, but as he lies awake, heart thudding hopefully in his chest, he starts to think that _maybe,_ if he works hard enough — that ‘something’ might be enough to make Cas want to stay.

And if Cas did — if Cas _did_ want to stay-

Dean thinks of the stories, of his dad kneeling to Mom, refusing to take the throne unless the council agreed to his marriage.

Of his dad offering Mary his crown when, after hours of heated debate, they came back out to where John was still kneeling and the crowd was still waiting, and finally relented.

And he thinks — maybe it’s time to stop thinking so hard about what he can do for Cas, what he can give to him, and more about what he’s willing to give _up_ for him.

Because Dean told him — he _swore —_ that Cas wouldn’t go to the Gardens by himself. And Cas knows it’s unlikely to come to that, that he’ll get to be with his sister, that he can have a _mate_ someday, whoever that mate happens to be.

But Cas still touched Dean’s face tonight, with demand and reverence both — still _kissed_ him, even knowing that nobody would ever force him to do it.

And if that’s really how it is, how it could be . . . Dean can’t give him up.

If there’s even a _small_ chance that Cas, every other fucked up things in their lives aside, won’t make him —

Then Dean can’t go his whole life without ever getting that again.

The light starts coming in through the windows, grey and unenthusiastic, by the time he finally falls asleep.

Charlie and Sam are having tea when Dean bursts into his brother’s room a couple hours later, exhaustion forestalled by nerves and giddiness.

He notes Charlie’s presence with relief (although she seems disproportionately startled to see him in return).

“Good, you’re here.” He drags a footstool to the table, dropping onto it and swiping her cup to take a big gulp of under-sweetened chamomile.

(Cas is a terrible influence.)

“Dude,” she complains, and he waves a hand, setting it back down once it’s empty.

Then he clears his throat, taking a deep breath.

“Do you think he’d be willing to marry me?”

Sam’s grip on his cup goes slack, tea splashing onto his pants, and he hisses, quickly setting it down.

“ _What_?”

“Cas. Do you think — because the thing is, I’d have to give it all up. Mom — I mean, she was a Campbell, but Cas . . . we’d have to run away. Which — there’s no way, right? He wouldn’t, would he? Without — without all _this_ , even that kid from the North has more to offer than I do,” he points out, dismayed. “His sister probably does, too. No matter how you slice it — it’s a bad deal, for him.”

Charlie gapes.

“You’re ready to _marry_ him?”

“Yeah,” Dean says distantly. He’s been in a weird cycle of excitement and hopelessness all morning, brain going wild with the logistics, and right now, he’s crashing pretty hard back into ‘hopelessness.’ “I just don’t know how to talk him into it. Or — or if it’s wrong to try. You know?”

“No,” Sam says quickly, and Dean swears the kid almost looks delighted. “No, it’s not. You _have_ to try, Dean. He deserves to have you try everything you _can_.”

“If that’s what he wants,” Dean points out, troubled. “But — he made me another pie. You know I literally threw the other one on the floor, right? Guy spent _two weeks_ learning how to make it, and I knocked it right off the table. Made a huge mess and accused him of all kinds of crazy shit. But — he _made me another one._ Got up before dawn to do it and everything.” He stares at the table, still a little shocked. “And then — we have this talk, about the whole tradition, about why it started, and — he’s pissed, of course, because it’s fucking _stupid,_ except I don’t have any good answers, you know, I’m a useless piece of shit, obviously, and the whole evening seems fucked, but then — then -”

Dean swallows.

“He kissed me goodnight,” he mumbles. “I didn’t — I don’t think I did anything. But he just — he kissed me. And when I tried to stop, because that — that’s wrong, I don’t deserve that — he looked at me like — like he wanted to kiss me some more, anyway.”

_Maybe even like he needed to._

Charlie blinks, slowly pouring herself a new cup.

“Wow.”

“Right? And — and maybe I’m getting way ahead of myself here, the guy’s cooped up in his room most of the time, and he doesn’t have a lot of options, and he’s — you know, he doesn’t have a lot of experience, so he’s probably kinda hard up, and maybe I’m just _there,_ but—”

“But I think he would.”

Dean cuts off, gaze flying to Sam’s.

“You think . . .?”

“I think he’d marry you,” Sam says earnestly. “Even without all this.”

It’s exactly what Dean wants to hear, even if it’s going to be a huge fucking mess and he’s not really looking forward to sorting it out, but—

“Really? I mean . . . maybe it’s a prison here, still, but — we’re basically looking at a cabin in the woods across the border and me personally hunting our dinner. And let’s not even _talk_ about bathing options, or book access, or other people, or — jesus,” he interrupts himself, grimacing. “Dude’ll end up killing me after all. Fuck, there’s no way he’ll go for it.”

“He might? And I don’t think it’ll be _that_ bad—”

“But it _could_ be,” Dean insists, although he’s hoping they’ll be able to just discreetly settle near a decent-sized town, even if it takes Dean a while to figure out the whole ‘livelihood’ thing. “We’ve gotta look at worst-case scenarios here. Besides, if Dad gets pissed about it . . .”

Dean shudders. He’s not sure he’s _capable_ of imagining ‘worst-case’, as far as that goes.

“Maybe he won’t, though,” Sam tries, but even Charlie shoots him a discouraging look. “What? He might not. _He_ almost did it.”

“Trust me, that’s not how it works, Sammy.” Dean sighs. “Nah, we’ll be lucky if he just lets me go.”

Sam frowns.

And then he blinks.

“Um — but wait, if _you_ run away, that means—”

Dean winces.

“Yeah, sorry.”

Sam looks a little ill.

“Actually, couldn’t I just go with you? I mean, it’d be way easier with _three_ people, right?”

“You’re both idiots,” Charlie announces, before Dean can go too far down the path of imagining John’s reaction to them _both_ defecting. She drains her new cup of tea. “I am totally rooting for some stupidly extravagant wedding where he gets to wear whatever the heck he wants and everyone has to tell him he looks great, _however —_ there _are_ acceptable in-betweens where nobody has to leave home or bathe in the river _or_ abandon the kingdom to the shithead whims of your cousin Christian.”

Sam and Dean both make a face.

“No way in _hell_ is he next in li—”

“The _point_ is: no, his majesty probably won’t let you marry him, _but_ — he might let him stay here? The council’ll have a bitchfit, sure, but at this point, as long as you finally get some heirs going . . .”

Dean’s heart sinks.

“Jesus. I forgot about heirs.”

She grimaces.

“That _is_ a point in favor of pooping in the woods. If you guys stay here, whether you’re married or not . . .”

Sam hesitates.

“If he really doesn’t want to, Dean could do that part with someone else.”

And Dean can’t believe he ever went to New Eden in the first place, ever thought he could just ‘do his duty’ with a stranger, even without the question of that stranger’s willingness.

He doesn’t _want_ to do it with someone else.

“I guess,” she says, doubtful. “Although, even if _Cas_ doesn’t want to, I don’t think he’ll like it if Dean has to spend a few cycles with some random noble lady.”

“Well, the situation’s never going to be _perfect._ ”

“If he goes to live with Anna and chooses a non-asshole prince for a mate, it might be,” Dean mutters. Clearly, kissing Cas has made him crazy, if he really thought for a few hours there that this could somehow work out. “And fuck, this all assumes he’s even interested like that. Just ‘cause he kissed me doesn’t mean he wants anything permanent. Hell, it doesn’t even mean he’d kiss me a _second_ time.”

Dean is hoping he will, though. In fact, he’s kind of hoping that second time will be sometime today.

Charlie waves a dismissive hand.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about _that._ Nope, the big question is whether or not you guys end up killing each other in an isolated cabin because your dad decides to be a dick about it.”

“Charlie,” Sam sighs, and Charlie shrugs.

“What? Even _I_ might be willing to pop out a couple of Winchesters if it’s the only way I still get hot baths.” Sam bitchfaces pretty hard, at that, but Charlie’s undeterred. “Anyway, whatever you ask — as long as you lead with, “I’m madly in love with you and I totally wanna be with you forever and ever,” I think he’ll be on board. And after that — well, we’ll figure it out. All of us.”

Dean’s not quite sure how to answer that.

“I wouldn’t — I mean — ‘madly’ is — is kind of-”

“Don’t even,” she says kindly, and he shuts his mouth.

“Right,” he mutters, reaching for Sam’s teacup this time. “Okay, then.”

They watch him drink with interest for a moment.

“But,” he starts, when he’s finished. “Isn’t that, uh . . . I guess — I don’t — I don’t wanna come on too _strong,_ you know?”

“Oh my _God,_ ” she says, and beside them, Sam just shakes his head.

“Dean. Just — go tell him you love him.”

Dean hesitates.

“We just kissed like, five minutes ago. Isn’t it kind of soon?”

“ _Dean._ ”

“And anyway, what are you guys even doing, having tea at eight o’ clock in the morning? Maybe we should all get some breakfast.”

Charlie pats his shoulder.

“We were having tea because we thought you were even worse at this than you are, but since you’re not, shut up and go tell Cas you’re in love with him so we can _all_ have breakfast while we figure out what to do about it.”

Dean gulps, and makes no move to get up.

Only when Sam gets out of the chair and reaches for him does he find the energy to flee the room.

Cas, of course, struggles to fall asleep.

His whole body feels like it’s buzzing as he lies there in bed, the phantom pressure of Dean’s mouth against his own lingering in the best of ways, and there’s an undeniably spiteful part of him that wants to request blackbird pie for dinner the next night.

Of all the nights for his window to open; Cas wishes they had remained firmly shut, wishes the whole _room_ had been shut off from the rest of the world, that Dean had stayed pressed against him, clutching Cas close and kissing him like Cas might be the only source of air in the world.

A part of Cas even thinks, if that flying abomination hadn’t squawked its judgment from the sill at just that moment and sent Dean hastening back to his own room-

Cas might have just asked him to stay. Might have accepted whatever Dean would ask for after that, given him anything he wished if it just meant Dean would lie down with him and remain there through the morning.

(Yet another part of him thinks, if Dean kisses him again, he might just do it tonight.)

He’s not sure how long he lies there, replaying it in his head, stubbornly cold despite the pile of blankets because they fail to be the source of warmth he’s craving, but eventually, he drifts off to thoughts of _touch_ and _want_ and _please, God, let me stay._

He sleeps late, well past the sunrise, and stirs only briefly when someone comes in to deliver the breakfast tray and take his laundry down. He has the vague sense of the light shifting, hours passing, but he’s mostly oblivious, lost to slumber as the afternoon approaches.

Only when his door opens again, sun streaming in bright, does he really wake, still groggy from the strange schedule.

“Good morning,” he mumbles, squinting at the visitor as he struggles to sit up. It’s no one he recognizes, nor is their uniform familiar. Beyond the door, he can see a second woman, waiting by a cart of some sort, wood scraps sticking up out of it and a bit of what looks like dusty tarp over the edge.

“Good morning, Castiel,” the blonde woman says, approaching the bed. Cas frowns.

“I’m sorry — I haven’t spoken with anyone yet. Did you need to do something in here?”

The woman smiles at him.

“Yes. We’re here to help you.”

Something cold settles over Cas’s skin, despite the kindness in her eyes.

“I’m sorry?”

“You need to pack a bag and come with us,” she continues gently, and the wrongness that wells inside of Cas is deep and visceral, the bright light of the room and the softness of the woman’s expression an upsetting contradiction.

“I’d rather not.”

The smile falters.

She glances back, exchanging a look with the other woman in the hall. As quickly and quietly as he can, Cas starts reaching for the lamp.

His fingers are just shy of making contact when she turns around, startling at the sight.

“Oh — no, don’t—” she says hastily, hand scrambling in her pocket even as he gets a grip around it.

He doesn’t get a chance to move it; in the next moment, she’s lunging forward, pressing a crisp white handkerchief to his face and sending him sprawling back. She’s smaller than him, but even as he shoves her off, she manages to hold the cloth firm.

And then an overwhelming dizziness sweeps over him, black spots dancing in his vision, and _then_ —

Nothing.

In the end, as much as Dean’s perfectly comfortable going up to Cas’s room and letting him know that, hey, by the way, Dean’s stupidly, pathetically in love with him and is perfectly happy to move to the unsanctioned wilderness to dig a latrine and hunt Cas’s dinner for as long as he’s bodily able — it _is_ still early, and sometimes Cas stays up late reading, and Dean should probably head down for training (he’s going to need it if they’re fending for themselves in the forest, right?) and _so,_ he decides the random love confessions can probably wait till lunchtime, when everyone’s fresh and fighting fit.

(Dean also decides he’s fucking terrified.)

(Sam and Charlie are wrong, right? For God’s sake, all Cas did was _kiss_ him! Just because _Dean_ thought it felt like a suggestion that maybe Cas wasn’t totally set on his sister or the Northern kid doesn’t mean that’s what it was. He reads all those novels, right? Maybe he got curious, and last night was just him trying Dean out.)

(Though technically, he’d already tried Dean out that other time.)

(Except if he liked that other time, maybe he really was in it for the pure, physical satisfaction. Maybe Dean’ll be like “Feelings!” and Cas will awkwardly ask to have someone else garden with him because that’s the last thing he’s interested in.)

(God fucking _damn it._ )

Anyway — he briefly considers trying to push it back until dinner, but he already promised lunch and Cas hates canceled plans and really, he could always just — test the waters a little bit, before he does anything rash; maybe start by telling Cas he hopes they stay friends when Cas goes, the kind of friends where Cas could even come visit for a few days or weeks or even months, and has Dean mentioned how much he’s going to miss him, when he goes? And if Cas seems like he’d totally come to visit Dean for days or weeks or even months at a time, or even just says _he’ll_ miss him a lot, too, then — then maybe Dean could sort of joke about how if they keep spending so much time together, he’ll never want Cas to leave! Which, haha, if Cas never leaves, Dean might as well just kiss _him_ for the rest of his life, right? And depending on whether Cas laughs, or how he laughs, or if he kisses Dean again, or if tells him to please just get the fuck out of his room, then Dean’ll have a better idea of whether or not an ‘I love you’ is really even appropriate, right?

(Dean is a fucking moron.)

He stands outside of Cas’s door for as long as he thinks he can get away with — Cas also hates it when he’s late — trying to prepare himself for whatever’s about to follow (impossible), and finally, when his watch says he’s drifting into asshole territory and his stomach is making it clear that another ten minutes of dithering won’t stop it from relaunching breakfast if it decides to do so, he knocks.

The seconds tick by without answer, so he knocks again, a little louder.

He waits, trying not to feel too uneasy. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and while he doesn’t think Cas has any reason to sneak out to garden or what-have-you, there’s plenty of other reasons why he might take a little while to answer the door.

It’s just — Dean can’t remember the last time any of those reasons happened. Lately, if Dean says he’s coming, Cas — Cas is right there, waiting. Never mind whole minutes, Dean rarely waits more than about ten _seconds_ for this door to open, so long as Cas knows it’ll be Dean on the other side of it.

“Cas?” he calls.

There’s no response.

He grips the handle, leaning in close.

“Cas, I’m gonna wait in there, okay?”

Still nothing.

_It’s fine,_ he tells himself, and carefully pushes the door open.

Silence greets him. He stands there, surveying the room in consternation, and when it remains still and empty, he steps inside.

The bathroom door is wide open, not a sound to be heard within, and much as it, too, would be a problem, Dean is almost disappointed not to find Cas waiting behind the door with another candelabra.

Panic slowly trickles through him, and he struggles for some explanation.

Maybe Cas woke up feeling sick, and Kate took him to the infirmary. Except — Harry would have said, if Cas came through, wouldn’t he? But he just waved Dean past and went back to his book, and maybe he just somehow missed Cas leaving the wing, but — but—

He takes a deep breath, trying to ground himself. He — he has to do something. Has to figure out what’s going on. Maybe Cas has been missing since Dean left him — maybe somebody snuck past Ed last night — maybe Dean should have found someone else to stand guard — maybe the assumption that they should be more worried about Cas running away than someone creeping in to hurt him was wrong — maybe he’s—

The frantic train of thought stutters to a halt as Dean scans the room, looking for some kind of clue, and his gaze settles on a white scrap on the nightstand.

Slowly, he approaches, a numb sort of terror in his blood.

Blue ink. Swooping cursive.

Anna.

Dean closes his eyes.

He’s not sure how long he stands there, the light burning behind his shut lids, some hopeless prayer for any other explanation thrumming weakly in his bones, but eventually, he forces himself to move.

Hands shaking, he picks up the letter.

_Prince Dean,_

_It’s a shame it came to this. I mean that. We were all hoping it wouldn’t. And perhaps we weren’t surprised, but we were disappointed._

_Still — thank you for what you did manage to do. He couldn’t be happy there, but he was as content as_ _one could hope to be. That isn’t nothing._

_I don’t think you’re a lost cause, your Highness. Cas was out of time to wait on you, but you are still not out of time to change. With any luck, you’ll learn from this._

_Regardless — we have prepared for retaliation, and we are not without support. I would choose your response wisely._

And that — that’s it. Anna’s neat, pretty hand, dry condemnation in every curling line of ink, and yet another warning at the end.

Not a word from Cas.

Dean reads it again, and then again, still struggling to really make sense of any of it, even though he knows it makes perfect sense.

_For my part, I think it’s be_ _tter to do the right thing_ _before you no longer have a choice._

Dean should have seen this coming.

He didn’t.

And he realizes, now, what that kiss last night actually meant.

That kiss was not ‘ _I could stay.’_

That kiss was simply ‘ _goodbye.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Past abuse: Cas recounts the story of his first time fishing, in which he cried when he realized the fish were dead and it was time to gut and clean them. His father was angry at him for crying (on the grounds that Cas was too old/a boy), made him gut and clean the entire bucket and stay out on the shore until he had stopped crying. Cas missed dinner and walked home alone in the dark.
> 
> In another scene, Cas reflects on Adina and David; it is implied that due to being caught in some intimate act, even if it was relatively minor, Adina was killed through unspecified means and David was confined and starved, and forbidden from mating (both incidents were attributed to ‘illness’)
> 
> Discussions of capital punishment: In telling Cas the tradition’s origin story, Dean references the stoning of a 15 year old girl. He describes Winchester’s ideas about capital punishment, explaining that executions are rare and an effort is made to perform them humanely, at least to some degree. This is world-building, not a greater commentary on this issue in the real world.
> 
> Non-consensual drugging: An intruder in Cas’s chamber sees his intention to fight her and presses a handkerchief to his face, which is presumably soaked in a drug of some kind, and Cas is knocked unconscious (abduction implied). It is indicated that Anna is responsible for this incident.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: imprisonment, sexism, references to exploitation/abuse of omegas and women, negative psychological fallout from Cas’s change in environment, one-sided Samandriel/Castiel, details for these things in the notes, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> *At some point in this chapter, Cas suggests that Dean not taking advantage of the situation is an indicator of his good character. To clarify, this is the perspective that made sense to me for him to have; generally speaking, not doing something Absolutely Horrible does not make you a good person, it just makes you Not Absolutely Horrible (probably).

Dean’s not sure how long he sits on Cas’s bed, Anna’s letter crumpled in his hand and mind crushingly blank, before he gathers his bearings enough to figure out what he needs to do next.

_W_ _e have prepared for retaliation, and we are not without support. I would choose your response wisely._

Yeah, well, wisdom might not exactly be Dean’s forte, but some things are predictable and no matter how ‘prepared’ Anna might think she is . . .

Nobody wants the King’s army on their ass. Not in Winchester, at least.

He stuffs the balled-up parchment in his pocket and numbly lets himself out, praying he doesn’t run into any of the maids on his way down.

Harry doesn’t spare him a second glance when he exits the wing, but Dean pauses, anyway, clearing his throat.

“Hey, who all’s been through here this morning?”

Harry squints at his book a few seconds longer, then looks up with a shrug.

“The usual people?” His gaze flicks back to the pages, and then he pauses. “Oh, yeah, and a couple chicks hauling away some renovation debris.”

“Renovation debris?”

Harry looks annoyed.

“Yeah, had a big cart full of wood scraps and old curtains or something. Man, I bet it was a pain in the _ass_ getting that thing down the stairs.” He shakes his head, lifting his book. “Anyway, I was kind of in the middle of something, so . . .”

Dean almost laughs.

“Of course you were,” he mutters, rubbing his face. “Yeah, okay. Later, Harry.”

Heart heavy, he heads to the stairs without waiting for a response.

He ends up on his ass more than a few times, and he kind of wants to puke through every exercise, but he makes it through a full two hours of training before motion abruptly stops around him and a shout draws his attention to the edge of the field.

Kate is waiting, face pale, two members of the king’s guard at her side.

Dean forces himself to walk over.

“What’s up, Kate?”

She hesitates.

“Emergency council meeting.”

Dean nods.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

There’s a flicker of confusion in her face, but Dean just shakes his head, brushing past the lot of them in the direction of the castle.

He knows what he has to do.

And hell — maybe Anna’s right. Maybe he should have just done this months ago.

Maybe this whole time, he’s just been stalling, too selfish to let Cas go.

Anyway, he’s not surprised to find his dad at the head of the table, irritation plain in the lines of his body as Dean comes to stand before it.

“The omega is gone,” George announces, pointed and frosty, and Dean suppresses a sigh.

“Yeah, he is.”

The room goes silent.

“Excuse me?” George sputters. “You _know?_ And you didn’t alert anyone?”

“Well, no, George, I didn’t.”

“Why _not_ ? He could be anywhere by now! With _your_ heir, I might add!” George shakes his head, eyes hard. “We h ave to send a squad to find him , and whoever helped him. He knows the consequences of running, and now he has to pay them. And _you —_ you should have told us as soon as you discovered him gone!”

Dean takes a deep breath, ignoring George and meeting his father’s gaze.

The way he probably _should_ have done months sooner, before things ever reached this point.

“Why would I do that?” he asks evenly.

George gapes.

“Becau-”

“I’m the one who let him go.”

Cas wakes disoriented, unsure if the dim blue light coming in is owed to dusk or early dawn. He’s in a bed of some sort, though it’s not quite comfortable enough to be his own, and he’s struggling to remember falling asleep.

A cool hand shades his eyes, brushing back his hair, and he flinches.

“Sh, Cas,” an achingly familiar voice says, and Cas sucks in a breath, jerking his head to the side.

Anna takes her hand back with a smile. Even washed out in the blue semi-darkness, she looks radiant, hair neatly pinned back from her lovely face and dark eyes twinkling.

“ _Anna_?” he rasps, mouth unexpectedly dry. “What — I don’t understand-”

He struggles into a sitting position, and her hand lifts again, hovering and ready to help.

“Sorry. They said you wouldn’t let them explain.” Her lips twitch a little, smile turning wry. “I did warn them.”

Cas blinks, taking in the unfamiliar room. It’s smaller than the extravagant suite at Winchester castle, but it’s tidy, and there’s a friendly sort of energy to the blonde wood and florals.

Still, it does little to soothe his mounting panic.

“What do you mean? And — where are we?”

“Mills Park, in Sioux Falls,” she announces, seeming almost proud.

His heart sinks.

He’s unfamiliar with the geography of Winchester, but Dean’s talk of delivery efforts made it sound like Sioux Falls was at least a day’s ride away.

He tries to swallow, but his throat sticks.

“Anna . . . what have you _done_?”

Her smile falters.

“Cas,” she says soothingly, hand ghosting over his. “I know — you’re probably afraid, right now, but — it’s not just me. That’s why it took me so long to get you out, we can’t do this on our own. But we’re _not._ And if he sends people after you — we’re not alone. And we’re ready to make a stand.”

Cas closes his eyes.

He’s heard about ‘making a stand’ against Winchester his whole life, and it seems to do very little good to those who try.

“I wasn’t worth this.”

“You are,” she says fiercely. “But even if you weren’t — it’s not just about you, Cas. There’s more at stake here, and I’ll explain, but for now-”

“For now, you and I and whatever mysterious collective you seem to be referencing are doomed.” Cas takes an unsteady breath, suddenly exhausted. “I was fine there, Anna. But I won’t be, if something happens to you. Never mind how they’ll punish me.”

“ _Exactly,_ Cas. You weren’t fine, because how could you be? A person can’t live like that, knowing every aspect of their comfort and survival hinges on — on _obedience._ On the whims of some unjust authority. That’s not a life.”

“That’s not how it was.”

“That is exactly how it was,” she counters. “And I gave him a chance, Cas. I warned him. I told him he was wrong. And what answer did I get?” She shakes her head. “Nothing. No explanation, no promise to do what he knew he should. Not even an acknowledgment that I had written.”

Cas closes his eyes, leaning back against the pillows.

“He may not have promised you, but he promised _me._ He _was_ trying, Anna. And I should have told you that. I didn’t want to raise your hopes, in case he failed, but — I see that was wrong.”

Anna’s forehead creases, lips pressing together.

“And it never occurred to you that he was _lying_?”

Anger blooms within him, despite his tiredness. He loves his sister, dearly, and some other time, he’ll probably grateful for her efforts, might even be impressed at what she managed to do, but in this –

She has been a fool, and now they both will pay.

“He wasn’t.”

“Cas-”

“He _wasn’t._ I don’t know why he didn’t write you back. Perhaps he didn’t realize you desired a response. But — he _swore_ he would find me a way out, and I believe he would have. This — I’ve missed you, Anna, more than I can say — but this was a mistake.”

She lifts her chin, jaw tight.

“If that’s the case, then we should have even less to worry about. He should be happy.”

Cas shakes his head. Dean is surprisingly powerless, as he’s learned. Whatever Dean’s feelings on the matter might be, it is his council and his father he must answer to.

No, it’s out of Dean’s hands now, and that — that will not make him happy.

And even if the council _does_ show mercy, even if Cas and Anna are left to their own devices here — _Cas_ is not happy. He knows he shouldn’t be upset; after all, Dean was fully prepared to give him to the child from the carriage incident, was making plans to send him to Anna, to make sure Cas could go _somewhere,_ so long as that somewhere was far away from him. Parting was inevitable, and Cas never had a choice about it. He knew that.

But he realizes now, just how much he’d hoped to have his way, anyway.

And if he couldn’t?

He wanted what little time he had left.

“He won’t be.” Cas thinks back to last night, to Dean’s arms around him, to the long-craved kisses Cas knows a part of him expected to have even more of, and a wave of despair crashes over him. “And neither will I.”

Anna frowns.

“You _will._ I told you, even if they retaliate-”

“Even if they _don’t,_ I won’t be, Anna. You — you don’t understand.” _You don’t understand what you took from me._ “ He was going to send me to you, eventually. When the opportunity came. That has been the plan for some time, now. All of this, it was an unnecessary risk, and even if it pays off for _you,_ I’ll still — I won’t-”

It’s a struggle to find the words, to explain; it’s difficult to even bear thinking of, even if he knows it’s what would have happened eventually.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” is all he manages, helpless, and she recoils.

There’s a long silence.

“Why don’t you sleep for now?” she finally says, soft, though she sits tense in her chair. “I’ll be here. We’ll talk in the morning.”

As far as Cas understands, he’s been ‘asleep’ for the better part of the day.

“Alright.” He shuts his eyes and rolls away from her, anyway.

There’s nothing she can say to fix this.

It takes a while before Dean can get another word in.

George is nearly blue in the face from yelling — Dean’s a little surprised he hasn’t started gnashing his teeth and renting his clothes — and Tara’s had a hand on her smallsword, her one pretension of dress, for at least ten minutes before John lifts a hand and commands the room to silence.

George looks affronted.

“But-” he gasps out, chest heaving, but John clears his throat, shooting him a dark look.

(Dean tries not to have any uncharitable thoughts about George, King Henry’s final, bright-eyed young installment, being long gone by the time Dean has to inherit his father’s council.)

“Dean,” he says, deceptively calm. “Explain.”

Fortunately, Dean’s had all morning to work on his explanation. He’d worry about that, more, but other than his own involvement, it’s not really a fabrication.

It’s just the truth, one he should have been brave enough to bring before his father sooner.

“We’re a joke,” he says bluntly. George sucks in a deep, outraged breath, but John keeps his eyes on Dean. He tilts his head.

“By which you mean . . .?”

“I mean you, me, the council, all of Winchester — we’re a joke. You’re sitting here yelling about consequences and obligations, talking about sending a goddamn army after one powerless omega, but this whole stupid tradition, everything you use to justify it, everything you say it means — it’s bullshit.”

“A meaningless opinion, coming from a prince who doesn’t take his own duty seri-” Tara starts, cold, but John lifts a dismissive hand.

“Quiet.” He studies Dean. “And . . . what? Rather than addressing your concerns to the council, you thought you’d just act on your own?”

Dean swallows.

“Yeah. Because the council would have just told me to shut up and do my duty.”

“Did you consider there was a reason for that?”

“Dad-” John arches a brow. “Your Majesty. I’ve done nothing _but_ consider our reasons for this.” Actually, Dean’s been spending most of his time just hanging out with Cas and setting himself up to get his heart broken, but it’s not like he can’t do both. “You didn’t see his back.”

“No, but one has to wonder if _you’ve_ seen it, at this point,” Tara interjects dryly. Dean ignores her.

“It’s covered in scars.” He glances over the rest of the council. “And I don’t mean tiny scratches. His father _whipped_ him, probably till the skin was falling off, till there wasn’t a smooth patch left . Cas won’t talk about New Eden much, but every time it does? It’s bad. It — it’s _hell_ there, you guys.”

“That’s one omega,” George objects. “Obviously, Winchester tries to keep order, but there will always be parents-”

“They still kill their kids, for the record.”

He scoffs.

“The audits-”

“The audits nothing, you asshole. So somebody goes around a few times a year and just _asks_ them who got mated and who died? What’s to stop them from _lying_? Dead people don’t talk. Cas says they write them off as flu cases or accidents.”

Gordon hums.

“Audits do report a lot of illness and accidents.”

“That’s perfectly normal,” George protests. “They’ve no modern infrastructure to manage hygiene, and there are cliffs right next to the town-”

“Are you fucking kidding me, right now? You know what you look like, right? You keep shouting about ‘let’s send a demonstration,’ show the world what happens when you fuck with us, but these people do the same thing we’re supposedly punishing them for right under our goddamn noses and we don’t do shit. The audits don’t cut it, man. The way they made him live — if they couldn’t use him for labor, they’d have killed him, when he presented.”

Tara gives him a sharp look.

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, that’s the other thing. Male omega? Worst thing you can be. Cas’s life was a nightmare.”

“Strange. And here I recall you telling us he was the same as any other.”

Dean swallows.

“I lied. I didn’t want you to send him back there.”

“Ah. So he’s been manipulating you from the outset. Why am I not surprised?”

“He _hasn’t._ And even if he has — so? End of the day, he — Cas is just a young omega. He’s got no power. And you wanted to bring him here for me to — to rape him and take his children. And since I _was_ raised on Winchester’s so-called values? Manipulating me into _not_ doing that to someone really isn’t fucking hard.”

There’s silence at that, gratifying in its discomfort. Dean turns back to his father.

“Which is really all it comes down to, your Majesty. These kids — they’re citizens of Winchester, too, and all we’re doing with this is exploiting the fact that they already got dealt a shitty hand. You wanna be just? You wanna show the world what happens when you fuck with us? Let Cas go. And then _fix_ this. For everyone.”

John considers him for a long moment, unreadable.

Tara clears her throat.

“Even if the situation proves . . . less _ideal_ than we might have thought — his Majesty was correct. You should have brought this to our attention sooner. If we’re a _joke,_ it’s partly because you’re trying to make us one.”

“Yeah? Was I supposed to just trust you to do the right thing? Because the kingdom’s had a few centuries to figure it out, and they haven’t, because it _works_ for us. At least on the surface.”

“If that’s the case, then as the prince, you’re duty-bound to do what _works_ for the kingdom.” Her lip curls. “Regardless of how you look at it — if you were anyone else, you would be making your case from the dungeons.”

Dean grits his teeth, opening his mouth to respond.

“Tara has a point,” John finally interrupts, and Dean falls silent. “As do you, son — but you’re going to be a king someday. There are rules, and you, more than anyone, have to follow them.”

Dean stares at his father, uneasy.

“What does that mean?”

His dad lifts his shoulders slightly.

“Three weeks seems reasonable.”

Dean blinks.

“Uh. You mean — in the dungeon?”

John nods, unperturbed, and Dean’s stomach sinks.

“But I just-”

“You just didn’t think it through.” John sighs. “This’ll be good for you. If nothing else, you’re going to be sending people there someday. You might as well know what you’re really doing.”

Dean gapes.

“ _Seriously?_ ”

John rolls his eyes.

“People die on the gallows, Dean, not in the dungeon. You’ll be fine.”

Dean hesitates.

“Okay, but — what about Cas?”

Someone sucks in a breath.

“Ohhh, you poor bastard,” he hears Gordon mutter, but he doesn’t care. Not about that or eating stale bread and cold broth for the next three weeks, far from hot baths and soft sheets of any kind.

It took him a while, but he knows what’s really important.

“You’ll leave him alone, right?” he continues. “Because if you’re not, don’t bother sending me to the dungeons. I’ll fight you, and you’ll have to kill me here, because like _hell_ am I gonna stick around to see you fuck him over a second time.”

Tara huffs.

“For God’s sake, don’t be such a damn drama qu-”

“We’ll let him be,” John agrees, and he has the nerve to look _amused._ “I did say you had a point, Dean. One which we’ll discuss. Aside from that . . .” He nods to the guards. “We’ll see you in three weeks, son.”

Something inside of Dean finally settles, and he nods, waiting for their escort.

Because sure, he’ll probably never see Cas again, but that — that’s fair.

He was never supposed to have met Cas in the first place. And as long as Cas ends up better off than he started out, as long as he ends up safe and comfortable and _happy,_ for once in his life?

Well, Dean’s got no damn reason to complain.

Sam comes to see him within the hour.

“Seriously? He put you in the _dungeon_?”

Dean shrugs tiredly. He hasn’t been here long, but he already feels _itchy._

The cot’s more comfortable than he expected, at least, which is a relief, given that Cas once spent the night in here. Dean’s not sure what he was working with in New Eden, but lately, when he stays late enough that Cas’s eyes start drooping, Dean’s been able to talk him into getting under the covers, and he can tell by the look of pure contentment on Cas’s face when he’s all tucked in that the guy’s thing with his bed is a romance for the ages.

(Dean’s been looking forward to the day Cas actually falls _asleep_ while he’s still there, but he guesses that day won’t be coming, after all.)

“Yeah. Apparently, my reasons don’t matter. I let Cas go without asking anybody, so . . . dungeons it is.”

Sam frowns, sitting down criss-cross outside the bars, and Dean watches in fascination. He wonders if this is what seeing a giraffe move around is like.

“About that,” Sam says, once he’s settled. “How did we go from confessing your feelings to letting him _go_?”

Rubbing his face, Dean sighs.

“We didn’t. We probably should have — I should have done this a long time ago — but, uh. I went to see him for lunch, and he was just — gone.”

Sam stiffens.

“ _Gone_?” he repeats, forehead getting all pinched and worried. “Dean, what if someone _took_ him?”

Dean nods.

“Someone did. Anna.”

The lines smooth into shock.

“Anna?”

“Yeah. Left me a letter and everything. From where she was sitting, I took too long to do the right thing.” He looks down. “And Cas . . . last night — all of that — that was just his way of saying goodbye, I guess.”

Sam just stares, stunned, and they sit in silence for a moment.

“So — he just — he left?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d you say you let him go, then?”

Dean makes a face, lifting his hands.

“Dude, what _else_ was I supposed to say? He ran away? They would have sent people after them.”

“They still could.”

“They could,” Dean acknowledges, but — “I don’t think so, though. Looks bad. I’m the one that fucked up, but Cas — if the _prince_ told him he was free to go, it won’t sit right with anyone if we hunt him down and punish him. Makes them _all_ look bad, one way or the other.”

And with any luck, his dad’ll either find the heart or strategy to make sure the issue never has to come up again.

Sam still looks troubled.

“I guess. But — how long do you have to stay here?”

Dean shrugs.

“Three weeks.”

“Three _weeks-_ ”

“’People die on the gallows, not in the dungeon,’” Dean quotes. “He’s got a point. I’ll be fine.”

“Dean . . .” Sam looks appalled. “How are you not freaking out about all this?”

Dean almost laughs.

“Trust me, the dungeon is nothing,” he says, although after a few nights on this shitty cot and days without decent food or _baths,_ he’ll probably feel differently.

Nah, for right now, the dungeon is the least of his worries.

“Okay, but what about -” Sam hesitates. “What are you going to do about Cas?”

Dean gives him a startled look.

“What do you mean, what am I going to do about Cas? I already did it.” He frowns. “But if it looks like those dickbags are up to anything, you better tell me. And actually, so long as you’re pretty sure they’re not, you should send someone to go make sure he and his sister are settled in okay.”

Dean actually doesn’t know where she is, or how she’s getting by. For all he knows, she was bluffing about being prepared; it’s not like getting past Ed or Harry is a trick, so Anna might even be on her own, just barely scraping by.

No, Dean wants to be _sure_ Cas’ll be alright. As long as he knows that . . .

He can deal.

“I — right, sure, but — after you get out. Later. What are you going to do?”

Dean squints.

“I mean, I’ll keep having someone check on them, make sure they’re doing okay?”

“That — Dean, that makes it sound like you’re never going to see him again.”

Dean tries not to flinch.

“Because I’m not,” he says shortly.

Sam stares.

“Dude. You were ready to _marry_ him this morning. What the hell _happened_?”

And that — Dean can’t help it. He thinks about that, for a moment, about the fact that this morning he thought he had enough of a shot he was actually going to tell Cas how he felt; that he _was_ ready to marry him, ready to give up everything and run away with him, so long as that’s what Cas wanted, too.

But that was this morning, and now, Dean knows better.

“He wasn’t ready to marry _me_ ,” Dean says simply, turning away slightly. “That’s what happened.”

“Dean-”

“Sam. I get it. It — it’s gonna be hard on all of us, him going. But — he was always going to, okay? Always. He just left a little sooner than we thought.” He clears his throat. “You better go. The longer you stay, the more likely the wrong person’ll notice and they’ll make sure you don’t visit me again.”

There’s a long silence.

“This — this isn’t right,” he finally says, quiet, and Dean swallows against a sudden lump in his throat.

“It is what it is,” he mutters, and after a beat, lies down on the cot. “Anyway, I didn’t sleep last night. I’ll see you later.”

He shuts his eyes, tense as he waits, but Sam stays silent.

After a minute, Dean hears him stand.

“I’ll come back tomorrow, if I can.”

Dean hesitates, and then he sits up.

“Sam?”

Sam turns back to the bars, sad and questioning, and Dean swallows.

“Make sure somebody keeps up with his garden, okay?”

Sam blinks.

And then he abruptly turns away.

Dean sees his expression crumple just before he does.

“Yeah. Yeah, I — I’ll do that. ‘Night, Dean.”

He leaves, and Dean slowly lies back down, chest tight.

He’s exhausted, but it’s a while before he falls asleep.

Cas hates the bed at Mills Park.

Objectively, it’s _much_ nicer than the one in New Eden, and probably even nicer than the ones in the inns they’d stayed at on the way to Winchester Castle. In fact, it’s probably nicer than most beds in the kingdom.

But it’s not _his_ bed, and it’s not as soft and plush and _warm_ as his bed, and worst of all, it’s not in Winchester Castle; and when Cas wakes up in it, a part of him just wants to cry.

“Morning, Cas,” Anna says softly, and he hates that, too. He should have been able to be _happy_ to see his sister, and a part of him is, but mostly — mostly he’s _furious_.

Cas opens his eyes, squinting in the early morning sun.

“Good morning.”

She studies him for a long moment.

“I have tea and croissants. You must be hungry.”

He is.

If he were at the castle, he could be having coffee and scrambled eggs and bacon and an apple. Possibly even a cinnamon roll, depending.

All in his wonderful bed in one of his wonderful nightgowns over one of his wonderful pairs of drawers.

Sam and Charlie probably would have come to see him, today. Cas could have read a novel — with the window open, even, because Dean made it so they open now — and then had lunch with them and then Dean would have come to go riding with him and work in the garden and have dinner and _then,_ if Cas’s luck held true, Dean would have kissed him again.

Had Cas known, he would have asked Dean to stay, last night.

“Thank you,” he mutters stiffly, sitting up. She offers him the teacup, first, and he stares at it for a moment, resentful. Tea is for colds or anxious moods, first and foremost, and after that, it’s for evenings, when they’ve finished in the garden and eaten dinner and for some reason, Dean still stays.

“Cas?”

He takes it, bringing it to his mouth.

“You may talk.”

Her brows lift.

“I _may_?”

“You said we’d talk this morning.” Cas sets the cup down, reaching for a croissant. “Talk.”

He bites into it, and a part of him is nothing but angry at how nice it tastes.

“Okay.” She pauses. “Well. This is Mills Park-”

“As you said.”

She stares at him.

“Yes, as I said,” she repeats slowly. “It’s the country seat of one of the noble houses. The Singer estate isn’t far from here, either.”

He looks up from his croissant, albeit grudgingly.

“As in Bobby Singer?”

She nods.

“Have you met him?”

“Not directly, but Dean speaks of him often. He’s a good man.”

She frowns a little.

“He is,” she says cautiously. “Though we’re housed at Mills Park, the Singers are an equal benefactor.”

Cas lowers his croissant.

“I don’t follow. Who is ‘we’?”

“People like you and I.”

“They take omegas from other towns?” Cas asks, incredulous. He experiences a brief surge of upset, thinking of some other omega tucked away in Winchester castle, neither one of them the wiser, but then he dismisses it. Unless training and the council meetings are a lie, Dean doesn’t have _time_ for a second omega.

At least, he didn’t.

Now that Cas is finally gone — Dean will have plenty of time, for whatever he wants to do with it.

Cas sets the croissant down, suddenly not sure he can swallow the next bite.

“What? No, Cas. But — there are other women and omegas that Winchester has hurt. They — they pretend to be just, but they’re not. Not to us, and not to others. The tradition with New Eden, what they were going to do to us — that just represents a bigger problem.”

“A bigger problem.”

She nods.

“Yes. The one where you _can’t_ be just, not if you see people as less. As different. And they do, Cas.”

He hesitates, thinking of Charlie and Pamela and Dean’s cousin Jo.

“Do they? My experience-”

“Your experience,” she interrupts, disbelief plain. “Your experience being kidnapped and held _captive_ , to be used and exiled? Your experience where everyone stood by and let it happen? Where your children would belong solely to their father? That wasn’t just because you would have borne them by a prince, Cas. It’s because of what you are.”

“It’s because I’m from New Eden, Anna. Plenty of women and omegas in the capital-”

“Yes, in the _capital,_ ” she retorts. “And it’s probably women who come from some amount of wealth and status. Do you want to know who lives at Mills Park with me? Who went to get you, despite all the risks?”

“Alright,” he agrees, at a loss, and she nods.

“For starters, there’s Tessa. That maid you’re so fond of, Kate? The work program she’s doing, where she works in the castle for five years and then gets an apprenticeship? Tessa did that. Hers was in medicine. She was going to travel as a doctor, to make sure people who needed it got help. Do you know what happened?”

“What?”

Anna shakes her head.

“She fell in love. She married. And she became a doctor, alright. Her husband set her rates and he took her wages. She treated the upper classes.”

Cas hesitates.

“That’s what husbands do. If she hadn’t married, wouldn’t her parents-”

Anna groans.

“Yes, Cas! That’s the point. They shouldn’t be able to. The blonde, Layla — she mated the day she turned eighteen. Childhood sweethearts, right? Everyone told her to lock it down.” Anna’s jaw tightens. “Her husband divorced her and broke the bond three years later, because she couldn’t have a baby. Her family wouldn’t take her back and no one else in her town would mate her, and she _struggled_ to find work, even when she left . When Miss Mills found her, she was pretending to be _widowed_ just to keep her job selling flowers. And in theory, the kingdom makes him send her a sum of money, but do you know who’s responsible for making sure he does? The town clerk. The same town that shunned her.

“And Billie — she drove the coach that brought you here. She’s worked in her father’s bookshop since she presented as an alpha, because who wants an alpha wife, right?”

Cas’s stomach turns.

“Probably as many people who’d want an omega husband.”

She nods grimly.

“Some provinces would have let her inherit a title, had she been noble. She would have been fine, then. But she wasn’t. And she still thought she was fine — she didn’t want a mate, and she loved that shop — and when her father died, and she took it over? It did better than ever. She cultivated and published the kingdom’s largest collection of illustrated works. People traveled from all over to buy them, Cas. She was able to provide work for other women in her town, who desperately needed it. And _then —_ her brother came back.”

“What happened?”

“He was the son,” she says simply. “The shop was his.”

“Oh, no,” Cas says quietly.

“Yes. He sold it. That was her _home,_ her livelihood, her entire life. And they gave it to him.”

_Surely something could have been done,_ he wants to say, but he knows as well as anyone that most of the time, there isn’t.

It’s just — he’d begun to think that, his own situation notwithstanding, the rest of Winchester was different.

“And that’s the thing, Cas. In Winchester, if you’re a woman or an omega and you want to be independent — _really_ independent, not just the men in your life _letting_ you do what you want — you basically have to marry well and kill your husband.”

Cas blinks.

“I mean your husband has to die,” she amends hastily, coughing. “The point is, widows are the only ones who can inherit their property — their _children_ . The most a parent can leave a daughter is a dowry, and if it’s unfairly weighted, sons can fight it. And it — it’s _insane_ . They have these programs, like your Kate is doing, they have these laws, that should have protected Layla — but laws on the books are meaningless if they’re not enforced, and apprenticeships just arm men with more options for how to use you. These women _work,_ they take care of their families, they take care of their communities in ways men often _don’t,_ but they’re still just — property. There’s still this line, separating them. When we were young, I’d hear the traders talk and I always thought, if I could just get out of New Eden, everything would be okay — but it isn’t, Cas. It _isn’t._ ”

“Anna . . .”

“And — Winchester is _huge._ No matter how progressive they are in the capital, or in places like this — that’s not representative of the whole kingdom. Maybe it’s not as bad as New Eden, but people still get away with all kinds of things. And some of the worst of it — the law allows it.

“Because at the end of the day, Cas — you and I are proof that Winchester’s council thinks of women, of _omegas,_ as things they can _take._ That they can use. And that — that is the example the rest of the kingdom follows.”

Cas looks back at her, at the bitterness in her face, lost.

“Alright. Alright, that — no. That’s not right. But things have never been right. What do you expect to do, Anna?”

She leans forward, eyes fierce.

“I expect to _change_ it. There’s a reason Lawrence or Sioux Falls feels like a different country than New Eden or the town Layla came from. No, the laws aren’t good enough — but even if they were, that still wouldn’t cut it. You have to change the _culture._ You have to open people’s eyes. You have to make the people it _does_ work out for, the people who have power, _care._ And Cas — I think you can do that. You already _have._ Especially after you took the Drive — people were furious. You — you’ve made a lot of them finally ready to listen. And yes, the prince might come after you-”

“He won’t,” Cas interrupts dully. She gives him a strange look. “It will be the king’s guard, or the army.”

“That’s . . . what I meant.”

“Yes, well, neither thing will be at his behest, either. As I told you.”

She says nothing, for a moment.

“Well. Anyway. If they send someone . . . Sioux Falls isn’t a small city, and it’s on our side. They’ll stand with us, Cas, and they have plans to do it.”

“And you think that will be enough?”

“Pardon me. It’s an _important_ city. The Singers and Mills are powerful families. Lord Robert is a councilman. It’s a major center for trade. Winchester will hesitate to see a fight through.”

Cas nods slowly, suddenly exhausted. It’s a lot to take in, and he’s still not sure what could possibly be achieved by taking him away early.

“Alright. If you say so.”

For his part, he’ll have to just wait and see.

As always . . . what else can he do?

A lot, Anna seems to think.

“Cas. It’s been three days. You haven’t left your room once.”

Cas smiles, amused, but doesn’t bother looking away from the window.

Mills Park has a beautiful view of the river. Cas likes to watch the water flow, pretending he can follow the path of the current as it disappears behind the hill before he shifts his gaze back to the other boundary of what he can see, ready to start again.

“My apologies. It’s what I’m used to, now.”

In his peripheral, he sees her flinch. It’s a curious thing, he thinks. He loves Anna so much, and all his life, her care and concern for him has been one of his only sources of comfort. What’s more, it’s unmistakable _;_ she gets so _upset_ when he makes a joke of what’s happened to him, and Cas ought to feel bad about it.

Instead, it makes him want to keep doing it.

“Anyway, I have, actually. I ran out of tea yesterday afternoon, and had to find the kitchen.” He tries not to sound accusatory, mood souring at the memory. “You were out all day.”

There’s an incredibly frustrated silence behind him.

“I’m not your maid, Cas,” she eventually says. “You shouldn’t need me to bring you tea or meals. You should be eating with the rest of us.”

“Fair,” he concedes.

He doesn’t have much appetite, anyway. He can likely make it a brief affair.

“Oh, you _brat,_ ” she snaps. “Stop — stop _wallowing_ and _guilt-tripping_ me. I know I made you wait too long, but — I did the best I could to get you out, as _soon_ as I could.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that,” he says kindly.

Another silence, this one vaguely despairing.

“Cas,” she sighs, dragging a second chair a little closer to his, trying to catch his eye. With great reluctance, he allows it. “I’m sorry. I just — I don’t know how to help you.”

“I wish I knew,” he admits, and it’s true. He absolutely wishes there were some means of ameliorating the overwhelming and terrible grief he’s spent these three days struggling to exist around, but alas — such means are beyond them both.

Anna looks so pained at that, that finally, guilt sways him.

“But I’m glad to be with you again,” he offers, and she swallows, immediately reaching out. He takes her hand, squeezing. “It was the hardest part of being there, being without you.”

She squeezes back, something like desperation in her gaze.

“I know — even before they took you, things were hard. They weren’t what they should be. Especially now, you — it’s hard to adjust, Cas, even if it’s to something better. Even I had trouble, and things were never — I never suffered, not the way you did. But things can be different here, Cas. We can have whatever kind of life we want.”

He nods.

“It sounds nice,” he lies, but then, so did she.

Cas will never have the kind of life he wants, because the kind of life he wants is impossible.

She gives him a long, searching look, and Cas can’t help himself. He turns away beneath her scrutiny, though he resists the urge to pull back his hand.

“I like the river. It’s very calming. I think I understand why people are so reasonable here.”

There’s no response. He can feel her eyes on him, still, watching, and he does his best to ignore it.

“Cas. You said this is what you’re used to, now, but — in your letters, I thought you said he took you out.”

Cas acknowledges this with a nod.

“He did. Nearly every day. But — he’s not here, is he?”

She hesitates.

“I’ll take you, then, if you want, but — he _isn’t_ here, Cas. You know you can go by yourself, don’t you?”

Cas turns back to her, incredulous.

“In my entire life,” he says slowly. “The only place I ever went alone was to do my field work, or to sneak down to the river to bathe.”

She nods.

“Exactly, Cas. And that’s wrong.”

“I know nothing of this place, Anna. Where would I even go?”

She smiles, tentative.

“Well — didn’t you just tell me you liked the river?”

He blinks.

“Yes, but-”

But he didn’t like leaving his room yesterday and he doubts he’ll like leaving it any other time, regardless of where he’s going.

No, he’d rather stay in his unexpectedly awful new bed and pretend he’ll somehow wake up from all of this.

“But I like the river, too. Why don’t we start by going together?”

She looks unbearably hopeful, and despite his unhappiness, despite his frustration with her, the strange pettiness she seems to provoke -

He can’t bring himself to say ‘no.’

He does take back his hand, though.

“Fine,” he mutters, flicking his gaze back to the river. “We’ll go. But I — I want-”

“What? I can’t make any promises, but I can try.”

Cas swallows.

“I want coffee,” he says, and to his shame, it comes out a whisper. “May I please have some coffee?”

There’s a stunned sort of silence.

“Is that . . . is that what you drank in Lawrence?”

Cas nods.

“I drank tea, too. But — my favorite is coffee. In the mornings, when Kate brings me — when she brought me breakfast. I always started with the coffee.”

“Oh.”

“He gave it to me, the first morning,” Cas continues, though she hasn’t asked, staring intently at the distant river. “At the inn. He brought breakfast to me while I was still in bed, and he shared the coffee with me. He said I could have all of it, if I wanted, even his. That when we got to the castle, I could have as much as I wanted. And then he said he wouldn’t bed me for at least two weeks, because he thought I’d need time to settle in.”

Cas blinks, throat tight, and turns to her.

“He lied.”

Anna looks stricken.

“He — did he-”

“He never intended to bed me at all,” Cas realizes. “I thought he was lying, that he’d take me sooner, but — he didn’t want to. He never wanted to. And I thought _that_ was because of what I am — but it _wasn’t,_ Anna. It was because he thought it was wrong, because it was wrong to do to _me,_ and he — he would never have done it. Whether he knew it then or not.”

Cas wishes _he’d_ known. Wishes he’d understood the man he was dealing with, that first night. Wishes he’d known it was the only time they’d share a bed — wishes he’d known that doing so would be something he’d come to _want._ The first two months would have been so much easier, if he’d just known what his reward would be.

Three days here, he’s held out. Three days, he’s told himself this was inevitable, that it’s far better than anything he expected before he ever set eyes on Winchester Castle, that he should just be grateful.

But he’s not grateful.

Instead he feels cheated, and he feels lost, and because he also feels like crying, he finally gives in.

“Oh — Cas, no -”

“Anna — Anna, I have no idea what to do here,” he sobs, curling forward, hiding his face in his hands, and in an instant, he feels her arms wrap around him.

“I know, Cas,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. But that — the way you feel right now — that’s one of the things he did to you.”

Cas shakes his head.

“No. Not Dean. Dean would not have.”

Her arms tighten.

“But he _did,_ ” she insists, a little hoarse. “I — I _warned_ him. I waited for him to do the right thing, but he _didn’t._ He kept you locked up. He decided when and where and what, for you, just like Mother and Father always did, and now more than ever, you don’t know how to decide for yourself. I don’t care how — how much _coffee_ he gave you, or how nice he was. That isn’t the way a good person treats someone else.”

“He did the best he could-”

“The ‘best he could’ would have been letting you _go_.”

In all honesty, Cas thinks the ‘best’ Dean could would have been continuing to keep Cas, just as long as Dean made it clear that it was entirely him that was deciding to do so.

He just shakes his head, Anna’s sleeve damp against his cheek.

“He was going to.”

“We talked about this, Cas. Just because he said he was-”

Cas pulls away, taking a deep, shuddering lungful of air. His chest feels cracked all over, like the next breath just might make it shatter.

“You know what he told me, Anna? The night before you took me, he told me — he promised me again, that he would get me out of it. And then he told me if he didn’t, if he failed, if I were sent to the Gardens, anyway — he told me he’d go with me.”

Anna stares back at him, confused and distraught.

“But why wouldn’t he just let y-”

“I don’t pretend to understand Dean. I won’t even pretend he’s not — a deeply flawed individual. Perhaps even disturbed,” Cas admits, never quite able to forget the sight of crumbling cherry pie amid the broken shards of the dish. “But he is good, and he was good to me. He tried, always.”

_And he made me happy, when he was brave enough to._

“Yes, he told you that, but-”

“You trusted him enough to send that letter. Some part of you knows. And he — he never touched me, Anna.” Except for the kisses, but those — those are Cas’s, and he wanted them, and he doesn’t need to share them now. “He could have. His council took measures, to force him. Any time he wanted — he could have treated me like the opportunity the councilman’s son thought I was. Something to — to use. But he didn’t.”

She swallows, eyes tight.

“That’s a low standard to measure by, Cas,” she protests softly.

“When everyone with authority over him is telling him to do just that? I’m not sure it is, Anna.”

She’s quiet, and then she covers her face with a hand.

“I should have taken you with me.”

He understands.

“Perhaps. But it’s too late for that. And now that I know — I’m glad you didn’t, Anna.”

“No,” she mumbles. “Please don’t say that, Cas.”

“It’s true. And — I forgive you for taking me this time. But . . . it’s difficult.”

Her hand drops, damp eyes shocked.

“Please leave me alone,” he adds, and after a long, speechless moment, she slowly stands.

In this, at least, she respects his wishes.

“So itchy,” Dean complains, when Sam _finally_ visits three days later. “And I’m fucking _starving,_ man.”

Sam glances around, and then carefully wriggles a napkin out from his waistcoat.

“Bacon?”

Dean leaps up from the stiff, lumpy cot.

“Seriously?”

Sam grins, shoving it through the bars.

“Seriously. Sorry I couldn’t come sooner.”

Dean whimpers, reaching for it with reverent hands.

“Fuck, who cares. I could kiss you.”

Sam makes a face.

“Please don’t.”

He does his weird little giraffe squat again, and Dean settles in right across from him, unconcerned for his already-dirty trousers.

Sam’s nose twitches.

“How, um. How often do they let you wash, in here?”

Dean greedily unfolds the napkin, shoving a piece in his mouth.

“Wunf a vek.”

“Once a _week_?”

Dean nods.

“Ugh.” Sam hesitates, then shrugs. “It could be worse, though. For a lot of places, that’s just the norm.”

Dean swallows.

“Yeah, but not _here_. And it’s _itchy._ And _gross._ ” He throws the next piece in his mouth. “Uh mah gov. Uh- _may-zhing.”_

Sam looks amused.

“What have you been eating, anyway?”

“Stale bread, chicken broth, and some kind of raw vegetable. Twice a day.”

“Huh. That’s . . . not terrible.”

“Of course not, we’re not-” _barbarians,_ he almost says, but then he grimaces, opting to eat another piece of bacon instead.

Sam awkwardly looks down, like he knows.

“Anyway,” Dean says, once he’s polished off two more. He’ll save the other half for later. “What’s going on out there? Did you get a chance to send someone to Sioux Falls?”

Sam nods.

“Yeah. Donna’s niece set out this morning, for some ‘sight-seeing.’ She would have gone sooner, but we wanted to be safe.”

Dean nods.

“Yeah, that’s fine. Let me know as soon as she gets back, alright?”

“Of course.” Sam hesitates. “And you? How are you holding up?”

Dean screws up his face.

“Like I said. Itchy. Hungry. Bored out of my fucking mind.”

Sam studies him, searching, and Dean must be less suited to confinement than he thought, because some ridiculous part of him suddenly wants to cry.

“Okay. Other than that, though. Than — dungeon stuff. Are you okay?”

And yeah, Dean knows what he means, but he’s been trying really, really hard not to think about it.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “Fine.”

“Dean.”

“Dude.”

“Just — if you want to talk -”

“ _Seriously_? Trust me, I really don’t.” He snorts. “And that’s after having nobody to talk to but Ed and Harry for the last five days.

Sam frowns, momentarily distracted.

“Yeah, why _are_ they guarding you?”

“Because they missed me letting Cas go. Punishment for all of us,” Dean adds, relieved at the change in subject.

“Ouch.”

“Yep. At least their shifts never overlap.”

Sam doesn’t respond, presumably because he’s imagining the horror _that_ would be.

“You know — you could just — give it a little time. And then go see.”

Dean’s heart stutters.

“Go see,” he repeats, warning, but Sam either doesn’t notice or isn’t worried.

“He might surprise you. Although it wouldn’t surprise the rest of us. Cas — he really-”

“Don’t,” Dean interrupts flatly, staring hard at his brother. “Sam. _Don’t_.”

“Why _not_ ? Wanting to stop being a _prisoner_ isn’t the same as wanting to leave _you-_ ”

“Except it _is!_ ” Dean snaps. “Because I promised him he wasn’t going to be! That I’d take care of it! And he still — he still -”

“He still wanted _options._ Can you blame him, Dean? And it’s not like he knew you _were_ one of his options. Maybe — maybe he’s hoping you’ll tell him, now. So he can choose you, for real.”

Dean rolls his eyes, pausing a beat at the end to close them, just to blink back the sting of musty dungeon air.

“This isn’t a fucking romance novel, Sammy. And that’s a good thing.” Dean scrubs a hand over his face. He’s so fucking _tired,_ even though he’s been lying on that stupid cot for the better part of the last three days. “Asking him to marry me while he was here would have just been — fucked up. Hell , feeling the way I do is fucked up. I don’t know why I thought it’d be a good idea to _act_ on it.”

Sam just sort of looks at him for a moment.

Then he sighs.

“So, no.”

“What?”

“No, you’re not okay.”

“Fine. I’m not. What’d you expect? Cas _left me.”_ Dean huffs. “Guess I should just be grateful he _said_ goodbye, even if he didn’t say that’s what it was. Could have been a lot worse; he could have just left me a note that said, ‘fuck you and curse all the children you do end up having.’”

Which is absolutely true, and probably wouldn’t be unwarranted, but — Dean wishes Cas _had_ told him. Wishes he’d trusted Dean enough to warn him, because if Dean had known that that was it, that that was all he was ever gonna get, he would have done things differently.

He wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to leave, certainly. He wouldn’t have done anything, either, wouldn’t have taken that from Cas, not after he’d already stolen so much — but he would have stayed, if Cas had let him. Would have said ‘goodbye’ the right way.

Would have said _thank you,_ for everything Cas has given him.

“You don’t know that was goodbye,” Sam protests. “It — it could have been something else. Maybe he was trying to tell you something, before he left. So you’d know how he felt. So you wouldn’t-” Sam screws up his face, waving at the bars separating them. “So you wouldn’t get like _this._ ”

“In the dungeon? Well, in his defense, I don’t think they were exactly counting on me to do anything about it.”

Sam’s lips press together, and then he nods.

“Alright. If you’re not ready to talk about it, that’s fair. Just — don’t lose heart, Dean. Okay?”

_Too fucking late._

“Fine, but tell me you brought some damn playing cards,” he says instead, and after another moment of scrutiny, Sam nods.

“Yeah. Of course.”

Anyway — Dean blames the lack of proper food for why he loses so badly.

Cas has been there a week-and-a-half when Anna tries to talk him into going somewhere other than the river.

Personally, he thinks it’s unfair; he already has dinner with the rest of Mills Park at least every other night, and he’s even polite about it, though at least three of them are responsible for aiding in his removal from the castle.

He can respect that their heart was in the right place, after all. And it _was_ very generous of them to go on his sister’s behalf, in case the castle was already on the lookout for her.

Still. He can’t help but think it was rather obvious he didn’t yet wish to be rescued.

“You need human interaction.”

“I see you plenty.”

“Yes, but you also need more than one person.”

Having more than one person _is_ rather nice, he’s learned.

“It’s a shame I left the castle, then.”

Anna doesn’t take the bait; she’s learned not to, by this point.

“ _Anyway._ I thought we’d walk through town.”

Cas squints.

“I thought you said it was a major trade center. It sounds busy.”

“Yes, but — that’s not a bad thing. It can be nice, Cas, getting lost in a crowd.”

“I don’t like crowds,” he says stubbornly. “I’m not used to them.”

He didn’t mind so much a couple weeks ago, when he went with Dean and Sam and Charlie, but Anna hardly needs to know that.

“Right.” She takes a deep breath. Cas notes, with a perverse stab of satisfaction, that she appears to be losing patience. “But don’t you think you should _get_ used to it? Being able to go where you want — being _comfortable_ going where you want — there’s nothing like it, Cas.”

He sighs.

“I’m sure. Where would you like me to go, then?”

Anna’s eye twitches.

“Ah, my apologies,” he concludes, nodding. “You already said. Town. Very well. When should I be ready?”

She inhales again, slow.

“When would you _like_ to go?”

“Whenever is fine. I have nothing else to do.”

“Okay, then.” She smiles, stiff. “Why don’t we go this afternoon?”

“Fine. What time?”

“One o’ clock?”

He nods.

“Very well. I’ll see you then.”

“Great.” She hesitates. “Why don’t we have some coffee, before I go?”

“If it pleases you.”

“It’s not about me, Cas,” she grits out. “Does it please _you_?”

He lifts his shoulders.

“I suppose I don’t see a problem with it.”

He’s a little surprised she doesn’t throw her chair at him.

Anyway, one-thirty finds him in his least favorite trousers — the tight black pair Pamela talked him into, which only seemed to get tighter as the months passed, because whoever threw a few changes of clothing in his bag seemed biased against anything he was actually partial to — strolling arm in arm with his sister and flinching every time a stranger brushes against him.

He is beginning to suspect the Princes’ entourage is deliberately given its space, in the capital.

“This is nice,” Anna offers.

“This is crowded.”

“Again, you get used to it.”

“Do I? I never went anywhere in New Eden, either,” he points out. He swears two young men slow as they pass him, exchanging a glance and looking sad, and Cas instinctively presses closer to his sister. “It’s possible I’m no longer capable of ‘getting used to it.’”

She pats his arm.

“You are. One step at a time, Cas.”

Cas isn’t sure he has the energy for ‘one step,’ never mind several of them.

He looks away from her, and finds a group of women on the other side of the street looking back, vaguely distraught.

People stared at him, when they took The Drive, but Cas is wearing pants today and he doesn’t recall attracting any particular notice when he’d gone to town with the others. If people stared, they stared at Sam and Dean.

Was it because he’d worn a hat, then? He’d thought he simply passed for a beta, dressed like this, but maybe the inns were different. Maybe he needs to cover his head if he doesn’t want people to look at him.

But hardly anyone else is wearing a hat.

“May I borrow one of your hats, next time?” he asks, just in case.

“What?”

“I — it feels like people are looking at me. I don’t like it.”

Anna hesitates.

“Well . . . that’s because they know who you are.”

Cas stops, and she stumbles.

“How? And why would they — stare?”

She grimaces.

“Because they know who I am, and they know I’m your sister. And most people hoped we would go and get you, and now here you are, so . . . it’s not hard to put together.”

“That doesn’t explain why they’re staring.”

“Cas . . . what happened to you wasn’t right or normal. I told you, Sioux Falls was ready to fight for you. For all of us.”

“Alright, but — as you said, I’m here. It shouldn’t be of any interest.”

She slowly shakes her head.

“It is, though. Your story means something to people, Cas. They’re curious about you, they’re angry on your behalf. I wish they wouldn’t, but — of course they’re going to stare.”

“If they’re going to stare, then I don’t want-”

He stops short, catching sight of yet another stare, fixed on him through the bakery window they’ve stopped in front of.

Except this one looks vaguely familiar _._

Cas draws back, alarmed as the boy abruptly darts out from behind the counter, struggling out of his apron as he goes.

To his astonishment, the young man from the carriage accident literally _flings_ it behind him as he bursts through the door, flour-dusted face split into a grin. Cas thinks he hears an irritated shout from behind him, but the boy ignores it.

He comes to a stop before them, breathing heavily.

“Castiel! You — you’re here!”

Cas stares, eyes flicking to Anna’s.

“Uh. Yes. But — why are you?” As far as he knows, the boy is from the North, and what’s more, Cas surmised him to be a gentleman of some sort. He’s not sure how he possibly came to be working in a bakery this far from his home.

Anna clears her throat.

“Samandriel helps with some of our efforts, when he’s not working at the bakery. He came here looking for a way to help you, except we were already working on it.”

Samandriel beams, seizing both of Cas’s hands, and Cas flinches.

“I’m so glad,” he tells him, eyes shining. “I — the thought of you, suffering in the castle-”

“Actually, I w-”

Anna elbows him.

“Samandriel’s been very helpful, Cas. And his sister has been generous with her own contributions, despite not being native to Sioux Falls.” Anna gives him a meaningful look. “She’s a widow.”

“I recall,” Cas says slowly. He’s at a loss as to what to say here. He knows the boy asked for his hand, and to the best of his knowledge, has not rescinded the offer, but since Cas never had any intention of accepting it . . .

It feels rather awkward.

He studies him, uneasy. Hopefully he won’t be expected to do so, now that Samandriel’s apparently gone through so much trouble to help him.

The door swings open again.

“Alfie! For god’s sake, child, get back in here!” a man gripes, shaking the discarded apron at him, and Samandriel winces, shooting Cas a sheepish look.

“Sorry. I just — I didn’t know they’d gotten you, and then you were _there,_ and — I’m so happy to see you again, Castiel. Not a day’s gone by that I haven’t thought of you.”

Cas has absolutely no idea what to say to that, but fortunately, his sister steps in.

“Why don’t you come have coffee with us, tomorrow?” she says kindly. “Cas likes coffee. I think he’d like the company, too. Town was maybe a little much.”

Samandriel’s face falls.

“Of course. After what they’ve been doing to you . . .” His shoulders tense, hands balling into fists at his sides. “I swear I’ll-”

“ _Alfie,_ ” the man at the door snaps, and Samandriel jumps.

“Sorry,” he calls over his shoulder, then looks back to Cas. “I’ll come to you tomorrow, Castiel. And the day after. And then maybe, one day, we can come back to town tog-”

“ _Alfie_ ! I swear to God I won’t _let_ you come back in if you don’t do it _now!_ ”

Samandriel looks despairing.

“I’ll see you, Castiel! As soon as I can!”

And then he brings one of Cas’s hands to his lips _,_ blue eyes shutting tightly as he does so.

“As soon as I can,” he repeats, earnestness somehow ominous to Castiel’s particular sensibilities, and at last, turns to dash back inside the bakery.

Cas stares after him, appalled.

“Anna,” he starts, and she coughs, tucking his arm back around hers.

“I think that’s enough for today, don’t you? Why don’t we head back? We can go for a swim in the river, if you want.”

He turns his stunned gaze to her.

“Anna,” he repeats. “Why did you invite him to Mills Park?”

She hesitates.

“He’s charming, in his own way.”

“In what way?” Cas demands, eyes flicking to his hands. “I don’t want him to come for coffee. He wanted to marry me before, and though I don’t know why, I am afraid he might still, and _I don’t want it._ ”

Anna sighs, squeezing his arm.

“Then have him for coffee as often as you can, Cas. I’m sure he’ll change his mind in no time.”

Cas stares.

“Excuse me?”

Anna’s lips twitch, and for the first time since they’ve reunited, Cas sees that familiar spark of mischief in her eyes.

His irritation melts.

“Ah. You’re very amusing. But — I mean it, Anna. I can’t — I can’t handle that. It’s confusing to me, and I _don’t_ want him to expect anything, and-”

“He won’t,” she assures him, sobering. “He’s just — he’s just nice, Cas. You could use a friend, here. And they’ve been happy to give us time to adjust, but I have seamstress work I usually do, and I need to start doing it again, but I don’t want to leave you alone. Just — give him a chance. Let him keep you company for a week or so before you dismiss him entirely. Alright?”

Cas frowns.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was keeping you from work.”

She shrugs.

“We planned for that. Honestly — you’ve needed me less than I thought you would.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and she shakes her head.

“I’m sorry, too. I wish I could be what you needed, right now. But since I can’t — we need to figure out what is. You miss — Sam and Charlie, right? Well — try making real friends.”

He gives her a sharp look, and she bites her lip, a flicker of guilt in her eyes.

“New ones, I mean.”

“Right.” He sighs. “Fine. But if he holds my hands again-”

“That was rude of him,” she agrees quickly, but she’s smiling. “I think he’ll behave better when he’s not so excited to see you.”

Cas gives her a doubtful look.

“If you say so.” He hesitates. “If — if you’re working — shouldn’t I be?”

Cas doesn’t really understand their situation at Mills Park; he’s been too busy being resentful of it to ask for explanations.

“I mean — eventually? But you deserve time. As much as you need.”

He thinks about it for a moment.

“I think — time is worse,” he finally says. “In Lawrence, Dean always — I — I gardened, almost every day. I don’t think I could have survived, if I hadn’t had that. I’ve always been used to work, of some kind.”

“Okay,” she says carefully. “Then . . . I should look for a position?”

He hesitates.

“Not like Samandriel’s. Not — not in town.” He takes a deep breath. “I can’t.”

“Of course, Cas.” She hugs his arm a little tighter. “I’ll see if I can find you something a little more like what you’re used to. Maybe — maybe just a few times a week, to start with.”

He nods, leaning into her slightly.

“That sounds good.”

And it does; something eases inside his chest at the thought, even if he doesn’t know what the work will be, yet. Being outside isn’t the same, with idle hands, or with his sister’s worried eyes sneaking glances at him every now and again.

For the first time since he got here, he thinks he might have something to look forward to.

“Alright,” Anna starts, catching his eye, brows raised. “Does that mean we can go swim in the river, now?”

He studies her for a moment, then smiles slightly.

“If it pleases you.”

Anna just laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Imprisonment: Dean’s father sends him to the dungeons for a three-week stay. Though he experiences some unpleasant restrictions, he is still allowed to wash once a week and given two full meals each day, which might not be as nice as he’s used to, but are still edible. The worst part is, of course, the relative isolation, and the boredom, though that is not explored much in this chapter.
> 
> Sexism: As Anna explains how she was able to get Cas out, and what his experience signifies for the rest of the kingdom, there is talk of sexism against women and omegas throughout Winchester. Inadequate or unfair laws, as well as a lack of proper enforcement, are discussed. The problematic attitude represented by the fact that they were going to take Cas or Anna at all is addressed.
> 
> References to exploitation/abuse of omegas and women: Anna describes the background of the women who took Cas from the castle; in each case, they were left at a disadvantage due to laws/attitudes in Winchester (Tessa’s medical education is exploited by her husband, denying her the ability to use it as she intended; Layla is divorced for being unable to bear children by her husband, after having been encouraged to mate too young, and her town fails to make sure she is provided for as laid out in the law; Billie, ineligible as an alpha, helps in her father’s bookshop and manages it after his death. It’s very successful, but when her brother returns, it’s awarded to him as part of his inheritance and he sells it out from under her).
> 
> Negative psychological fallout from Cas’s change in environment: Cas struggles to adjust in Sioux Falls. He misses the people in Lawrence, in addition to his routine there, and the fact that the choice was taken from him is significant. He’s angry with his sister and with the people who helped her, and he also experiences uncertainty about what to do with himself going forward.
> 
> One-sided Samandriel/Castiel: Samandriel remains infatuated with Castiel, and it is clear he intends to embark on a courtship of sorts. Cas is baffled, and experiences some anxiety over it; as far as requited feelings go, this story is strictly Dean/Cas.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: more one-sided Cas/Samandriel, references to/discussions of sexism, discussion of Stockholm Syndrome, though it isn't called that, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Note: This story involves some serious themes regarding sexism, gender roles, and to an extent, what amount of interference a government is entitled to/obligated to perform in people's daily lives. I would like to think that solutions for the immediate problems in this particular universe are ideal/believable, but I am never trying to make a broader, comprehensive statement about what is right or should always be done in the real word. One of fic's primary appeals for me is leaving the real world behind.

“And when Charlotte distributed Anna’s prints around her monthly ladies’ meeting, the head councilman’s wife took copies for her husband to give to the rest of them!”

“That’s wonderful,” Cas says, because it is, and despite the breathtaking stores of pettiness he has come to realize he houses within himself, he can still at least _identify_ what is correct behavior. “I hope it has the desired outcome.”

Samandriel’s face falls, and Cas feels a stab of guilt.

“Do you think it won’t? Your sister was so careful _,_ it shouldn’t upset anyone — really, how could someone read them and _not_ be moved to action?”

With every day that passes, Cas learns more about the women of Mills Park and their previous situations, and he can’t help but think that if the people directly _involved_ in their suffering were utterly unmoved by it, people who simply _hear_ about it might be even less so.

“I couldn’t say. She won’t let me read them.”

Samandriel’s gaze flicks to the side, and he clears his throat, smiling brightly.

“Well — I think — after everything you’ve been through, she’s probably worried it will upset you.”

Cas takes a calming sip of coffee.

“Isn’t the goal of them to cause upset?”

“Well — well, yes, but — not to _you._ ”

“I’m sure it would be fine,” Cas says mildly. “I’m accustomed to being upset, at this point.”

Anna probably would have just rolled her eyes, but Samandriel falters, blue eyes going wide and sad.

“Of course. Who wouldn’t be? But-” Cas hastily picks up his mug again as Samandriel tries to reach for his hands, and the boy blinks before awkwardly settling them back in his lap. “Things can be different now. If I have my way, you — you’ll never have to be upset again!”

Cas doubts Samandriel will have his way; even right now, Cas is rather upset.

Still, he supposes it’s sweet of him to say so.

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

Samandriel beams.

Cas just suppresses a sigh and takes another drink.

When it comes time for Samandriel to leave, he hovers at the door, as he always does.

“Castiel, may I — when the portraitist comes, may I request a miniature copy? For myself?” he clarifies, looking unbearably shy, but Cas is largely stuck on the words preceding it.

“The portraitist?” he echoes.

“To take your likeness. For the newspaper etching, to go alongside the column?”

“The . . . column?”

Samandriel hesitates.

“Didn’t your sister talk to you about it?”

Anna talks to him about very little, Cas suspects.

“No. She did not.”

“Oh. Well — she thought — it seems like the capital won’t come after you, after all, and — people are so curious, all over Winchester — and it was such a great injustice, Castiel! You should tell as many people as will listen!”

He squints. Ever since he started work at the river docks, people at both Mills Park and outside it seem to have taken it as their cue to begin speaking to him; if he spoke about it to as many people as seem to want to _hear_ about it, he’d spend his entire day talking.

Cas doesn’t want to talk, period. He certainly doesn’t want to talk about _that._

“Alright,” he finally says. “I’ll ask Anna.”

Samandriel bites his lip.

“And . . . if the painter comes?”

Cas hesitates.

He can’t help it. He thinks of that other portrait, a quick sketch from a festival artist, likely forgotten amid Charlie’s things or thrown out — but still the only likeness ever taken of him, and ordered by _Dean_ nonetheless — and he doesn’t want another.

He doesn’t want Samandriel to have a copy, when everyone he left behind will doubtless forget his face soon enough.

“I don’t want the portraitist to come,” he says honestly. “I’ll discuss that with her, as well. Thank you for the company, Samandriel. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

Samandriel looks disappointed.

“Of course, Castiel. But — tell me if you change your mind.” He stares into Cas’s eyes, intent. “It would mean — _so_ much, to me. I’d take it everywhere I went.”

Cas has no idea what to say to that, but fortunately, he’s saved from having to figure it out.

“Castiel. The kitchen has a shipment of flour. You need to help bring it in and put it away.”

He whirls, eagerly meeting Billie’s eyes. Much as she intimidates him, her timely interference has saved him from several unpleasant conversations, by this point, and he’s come to find her presence vaguely calming.

“Yes, of course. If you’ll excuse me, Samandriel . . .”

“Oh. I — alright.” The boy sounds disappointed, and Cas offers a blandly friendly look over his shoulder. “I’ll come see you again tomorrow?”

“Ah, I’ll be at the docks tomorrow.”

Samandriel briefly makes a face; he, like most people, seems to have a very negative reaction when he hears Cas is loading and unloading cargo at the river docks. Cas had tried a day of work in the Singer fields, at first, but past not being _soothing_ , Cas found he could hardly bear the familiarity of it.

And he knows Anna had thrown this option out to make a point, frustrated by all the positions he’d already refused, but — it had appealed, for whatever reason, and Cas had impulsively decided to insist. The bay is less scenic than the section of river by Mills Park, and yes, he was initially wary of the other workers, but the atmosphere is nice and nobody bothers him and Cas likes to think the impulse was correct.

Anyway, he works with Singer’s ships, and while he suspects instructions may have been given to treat him thus, he _likes_ the work, and he’s hardly going to complain about having things exactly the way he prefers them to be.

(Of course, he is a little worried his arms will just become _larger_ from all the lifting and hauling, but he tries to remind himself that it matters even less than it did before.)

“Then — the day after?”

“If you’d like.”

Samandriel perks up.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he insists, and behind them, Billie hums pointedly.

“Ah. Yes, well — take care, Samandriel.”

Once the boy has at last left and shut the door behind him, Cas joins Billie at the mouth of the hall, lifting his brows.

“Is there really flour?”

She raises a brow right back.

“Are you suggesting I’m a liar, Castiel?”

He hesitates.

“I’m suggesting your kindness entails a favorable amount of strategy.”

There’s a ghost of a smile on her lips before she turns away.

“There _is_ flour, actually, and a number of other heavy supplies. Come make yourself useful.”

This, he’s more than happy to do.

“About the portraitist. And the — column?”

Anna freezes over her dinner plate, shooting him a panicked look.

“I’m sorry?”

“Samandriel mentioned both.” There’s a gratifying flash of irritation on his sister’s face. Given how strongly she encourages Samandriel’s visits, Cas can’t help but appreciate the irony of his apparent, unintentional betrayal.

“Did he?” she mutters, setting down her fork. “Well. I thought it would be best to wait, but since it’s come up — yes, Cas. I thought it might be good for you to share your story.”

“My story.”

“Your story.” She hesitates. “About how things were in New Eden — how Winchester just let it happen. What Winchester intended to do to you — what they _did_ to you.”

Cas can’t help himself. He thinks about kissing Dean that last night, about Dean kissing him back, about the few times Dean held his hands, even about working together in the garden. That was just one night of many, just a few moments amid months of them, just endless, ostensibly unexceptional hours in his day-to-day, but that’s what he remembers, when he thinks of Lawrence.

(Well, with an extra thought to spare for that first, violently wasted pie.)

“I don’t think anyone will care to hear about my time at the castle,” he says dryly, and she looks torn, clearly oblivious to where his thoughts have gone.

“Maybe, maybe not. Part of me thinks it’s better to focus on the intent of it, on what they took you there to do, not to mention the fact that you were kept at all — but another part of me thinks — Dean did a lot for you, things I don’t think he was supposed to. If it was suggested that the _prince_ condemned his kingdom’s attitudes, as well, enough to rebel, even minimally, it might — but then, he may deny it. Clearly, we can’t rely on him. And I don’t know what would be most effective, either way,” she sighs, troubled.

It all gives Cas a very unpleasant headache.

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow. Regardless — I don’t want my portrait done.”

“But Cas — if people could _see_ you, I think it would help even more.”

“I don’t see how that will help. I don’t see how _any_ of it will help. They already know my story, Anna.”

“Not in _your_ words.”

“My words are generally irrelevant,” Cas mutters. At least, that’s how it seems to him. “Anyway — as it is, people — they ask me too many questions.”

Anna studies him, considering. Then:

“Do you know a Mr. Smith, down at the docks?”

Cas makes a face.

“I know three Mr. Smiths, and I generally don’t speak to any of them.”

She waves a hand.

“Tall, muscular, inquisitive moustache.”

Cas blinks.

“Ah. Yes, I’m familiar with him.”

“Well, Mrs. Smith works in the kitchens here, and do you know what she says he came home and asked her, yesterday?”

Cas waits, a little impatiently. Anna knows perfectly well that he _doesn’t_ know, and he’s not sure why she insists on drawing it out. Personally, he thinks she’s spent _too_ much time talking to all these people (and addressing groups of them in the parlor, as he’s overheard a few nights). It’s made her conversation far less straightforward.

“’Can you imagine how awful that must be?’”

He stares blankly.

“He was talking about you. About what happened to you.”

“Oh. Well. Based on what _I_ was always told, it’s supposed to be awful,” Cas returns pointedly. “It’s a form of divine punishment, after all.”

Anna huffs.

“It _isn’t._ He said you seemed just the same as any of them. That he wouldn’t have guessed, not from how you looked or how you behaved, if he didn’t already know.”

“Again, that’s part of the-”

“He expected you to be different. But you weren’t. And they treated you like that anyway.”

“Alright?”

“So he asks his wife, ‘can you imagine how awful that must be’? To be treated based on what you _supposedly_ are, instead of what you _actually_ are? To be treated _terribly_ based on something that doesn’t really seem to make a difference?”

Cas frowns.

“It does, though.”

“ _Does_ it? You’re working at the docks because you’re strapping and hardy and have developed an unfortunate habit of insisting on having your way,” she starts, and Cas’s frown deepens to a scowl before she breezily continues. “Alfie, lovely though he is, couldn’t last a day. It’s not work he’s suited to.”

Cas hesitates.

“He could still . . . grow into himself.”

“I’m sure,” Anna says kindly, though she looks doubtful. “The point is, that suggests the argument that you’re more of an omega than a man is wrong _— a_ _nd so_ _is the_ _reverse_ , because not all men _are_ like you. And then there’s Billie! She ran one of the most diversely stocked and oft-frequented bookshops in the _kingdom._ Does she have natural alpha business acumen, or does she not deserve the shop because she’s a woman and she can’t manage it? It can’t be both, and yet, people tried to say it _was._ ” She takes a deep breath. “These things — they can’t possibly mean everything people try to say they do, and people like you and Billie — they prove it. They prove that when we talk about who people are and what they’re capable of, what they’re _worth,_ we oversimplify it.”

“Anna . . . yes, perhaps so, but — this is the way the world works. It always has. Men and women, alpha and beta and omega, whatever combinations thereof . . . that will always mean something. I don’t think you can change that.”

Anna purses her lips.

“Maybe, maybe not. But that’s not what I’m after, Cas. Even if we can’t change the fact that people see us as different — I think we can change the fact that they see us as _less_.”

Cas isn’t sure how to answer that, is puzzled at his sister’s insistence that he’s really a part of this, past having been drawn into the so-called New Eden tradition after she ran.

“You, perhaps,” he says finally. Anna, despite having developed what are likely considered unbecoming hobbies, might easily prove her worth in a variety of circumstances. Cas, on the other hand . . . “Whatever you call me — I can’t be that. I can’t be a man to someone. I can’t be an omega to someone else. There — there isn’t any place for me, Anna, not outside of work. I’m genuinely worth _less_.”

She clenches her fists.

“You’re _not,_ ” she insists. “You can be either thing, or both, or neither. That’s what I’m trying to say. Whatever you decide to do, whatever people think you are — you should be able to do it, and you shouldn’t have to worry about someone taking it away.”

_Too late,_ he thinks, but really, it’s beside the point, now.

“Regardless,” he says tiredly, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t know that it can be changed, and while I support you in the endeavor, if you wish to try — having me sit for a portrait and talk about these things won’t help.”

“It already has,” she counters. “Mr. Smith _asked_ that question. The kind of person who maintains the status quo, even passively, looked at you and recognized _something_ of himself, enough to ask that. And do you know what his wife said?”

Cas just looks at her.

“She said she didn’t _need_ to imagine it, because she lived it. And then she explained how, and then — she went and slept in the stable.”

Dismay fills him.

“He punished her?”

“ _No._ Mr. Smith is the chivalrous kind. He felt so terrible about his omega being uncomfortable in the stables, he couldn’t sleep a wink. And when she came in for breakfast, she explained why that was wrong, too. And this evening?” she says, chin up. “Mr. Smith came to the parlor meeting.”

“I see.”

“I told you, Cas. People were ready to fight for you, and maybe that was more about the tradition itself, but I’m hoping — I’m hoping that means they might be willing to fight for all of us. _Everyone_ can see themselves in you, Cas. It might just be what we need to get them to at least listen.”

And Anna — Anna looks like she believes it.

He closes his eyes.

“Samandriel may not have a miniature,” he says, then opens them. “And I won’t talk about Dean.”

She hesitates.

“Fair. It might be best if you don’t. But — it _will_ be in the papers, Cas. More than just Samandriel will get a copy.”

He grimaces.

“Fine. But he’ll have to cut it out of them.”

“Okay. But — you’ll do it?”

“If it means that much to you.”

“It does, Cas, but more than that — it means something to more than just me. Maybe more than we can imagine.”

“I hope you’re right,” he says, although he still has his doubts. “But I’m tired, now. I’m at the docks tomorrow.”

“Of course. I’ll see you in the morning.” She stands, ducking down to kiss his forehead as she passes. “Thank you, Cas.”

He nods.

“Good night, Anna.”

The portraitist comes two days later, while Samandriel is still chattering away over tea.

Samandriel stays put in the chair across from him while the man works, watching Cas with warm eyes, and periodically, he tells Cas how _beautiful_ he looks.

“No picture could do you justice, but even so — I think you could melt even the stoniest of hearts.”

Samandriel, apparently, thinks it’s wonderful that Cas is willing to share his story. What’s more, he thinks Cas is the most amazing person he’s ever met, and he knew it the moment Cas calmly lifted that carriage and told Samandriel how to help.

“It’s like my eyes opened,” he says, nearly reverent, and the portraitist shoots Cas an amused look.

Anyway, it’s a very good likeness, Cas thinks, far more detailed than the sketch from the festival, but then the man from the papers comes and Samandriel feels an evidently implacable need to hold his hand through the entire interview, and when all is said and done-

Cas can’t help it.

He feels a little like something was taken from him.

Despite sitting on his ass for three weeks — although he did try and do what he could, as far as exercise went — Dean feels exhausted when he finally gets out.

“Does his Majesty wanna see me?” he asks Harry, and Harry gives him a tired look.

“Nope. Not yet, anyway. God, that was awful. I’m so glad I’m out.”

Dean pauses, slowly turning to look at him.

“You’re glad you’re out,” he repeats.

“Yeah. People need sunlight, dude. Some days we didn’t even shift change until dinner!”

Dean sighs.

“Right.”

Harry suddenly looks awkward.

“I mean. You know. Not that it wasn’t nice spending time with you,” he offers kindly.

“Right. Thanks, Harry. I appreciate that.”

“Sure.” He looks relieved. “Yeah, anyway, so I’m gonna go, then. And — no offense, but maybe you should start with a bath.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.” Dean shakes his head. “Later.”

With that, he turns the opposite direction down the corridor and starts the long trudge up to his room.

Anyway, he only makes it about halfway before Sam comes jogging down the hall, hair flopping ridiculously in his wake.

“Dean!”

Dean lifts a tired hand.

“Hey, Sammy.”

Sam slows as he approaches, eyes big and concerned. Dean thinks there’s a little bit of guilt in there, though it’s not the kid’s fault.

“Hey. I came as soon as they told me you were free to go. How, um, how are you doing?”

About a week and a half ago, Ed and Harry had been re-informed to allow ‘zero visitors, yes, that includes Sam,’ under penalty of having dungeon duty for the rest of their careers.

For once, they did as they were told.

“Not as bad as I could be.” Dean shrugs. “Gonna take a bath, change my clothes, and then figure out if I want some fresh air or a real bed first.”

Sam nods.

“Yeah. Maybe both? You could open a window, take a nap.”

Of course, open windows just make Dean think of the fact that Cas’s _didn’t,_ and that by the time Dean did anything about it, it was way too late to be of any use to him.

He shakes his head.

“Nah, that — that’s okay. I’ll wait. Think I will start with the nap, actually.”

Sam studies him intently, sad puppy-eyes in force.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. Do you — I don’t know, do you want me to sit with you?”

Dean makes a face.

“I’m not dying, man.”

“Right, but-”

“Seriously, it’s fine,” he insists, and when it looks like Sam’s going to protest, adds, “You can stop by in a few hours with whoever else, maybe bring some games or something. That’d be nice.”

His brother hesitates.

“Okay. I’ll let everybody know you’re out.”

Dean nods.

“So, uh. Donna’s niece. She’s gotta be back by now. She find ‘em?”

Sam quickly nods.

“Yeah. They’re good. I guess — Anna’s been staying at Mills Park.”

Dean blinks.

“Mills Park? As in, Jody’s house’s seat? As in, right next to _Bobby’s_?”

Sam sort of glances away, rubbing his neck.

“Yeah.”

Dean processes this for a moment.

“Did they know he was leaving me?” he finally asks, and Sam gives him a frustrated look.

“Dean, he didn’t _leave_ you. He took his freedom back.”

“Same damn thing. Did they know?”

Sam sighs.

“No. They suspected it would happen at some point, and they said they’d stand with them, when or if it did, but — no.”

“Of course,” Dean mutters. He should probably be grateful, that there really is more than just Anna looking out for Cas, but-

He can’t help it. He feels a little betrayed.

“Speaking of, um, Cas,” Sam starts, and Dean gives him a sharp look, which Sam pointedly ignores. “Have you thought more about it?”

“About _what_?”

“What you’re going to do.”

“I thought we already talked about this.”

“Yeah, but — you were still in shock, Dean. I guess I thought — now that you’ve had some time to — to process, maybe . . .”

He trails off, but Dean just lets the word hang, trying to figure out how to explain in a way that Sam can understand.

Because _yes,_ Dean’s had time. Dean’s had more time than he knows what to do with, enough to realize just how much of his time _Cas_ used to occupy, and how desperately he’s going to miss him, now that he’s gone. To realize h ow _hard_ it’s going to be without him, because Dean let things get too far, let them get to a point where he no longer wanted to be without Cas, _ever,_ even though he’s going to have to.

He’s going to have to, because even if Cas didn’t mean to leave _him_ , even if Cas _wanted_ Dean to come after him-

Dean can’t.

“Ed and Harry stopped being annoying,” he finally says, and Sam looks confused.

“What?”

“Only took two weeks. Once you stopped being able to visit, I just . . . they’re a couple of fucking idiots, and Harry’s a massive dick, but — fuck. I don’t know what I would have done if I couldn’t talk to them.”

“I — okay? That’s fair, Dean. I wouldn’t feel bad about it. I mean, you were locked up.”

Dean nods, swallowing down the stupid little lump that frogs its way up into his throat every time he thinks about this.

Lack of sun and fresh air is making him hypersensitive, he guesses.

“Yep. I was.” He takes a deep breath. “So think about how Cas probably felt after _six_ _months_.”

Sam stops short, and when he fails to keep walking, Dean reluctantly turns to face him.

“What?”

Sam shakes his head.

“Dean — that’s not the same thing. Cas wasn’t in a dungeon, with _literally_ no one to talk to and nothing else to do.”

“Wasn’t he? Sure, he saw a few more people, but — everything he got, somebody had to give him. When he did get out, it was because I was willing to let him. I think anybody would get confused.”

“Well, _n_ _o_ , it doesn’t sound great when you put it like that, but — I don’t think Cas was confused. He didn’t seem confused. And — he didn’t treat you like he was.”

“Doesn’t matter. We can’t know that. Even _he_ can’t know that. If he’s safe and sound with Anna, then — we’re gonna let him be. Like we should have to begin with. That’s the _one_ decision he made in all of this, and — fuck the rest of us, Sam. That’s what we need to respect.”

“But you could at least _tell_ him you-”

“No, I _couldn’t_. Now, just — go away. I want a nap. I’ll see you and the others later.”

Sam looks intensely frustrated, but honestly, it’s hard for Dean to care.

He’s a lot worse than _frustrated,_ and all he wants to do is go back to his room and collapse into nothingness for a few hours. Because while missing Cas from the dungeon was hard, now that he’s out, now that he’s going to have to try and get back in to some kind of routine, one where he _isn’t_ scrambling to make as much time as possible to just go hang out with Cas — missing Cas is probably going to be ten times worse.

‘ _Now that you’ve had some time to process,’_ Sam had said.

It’s laughable.

No matter how much time to ‘process’ you give him-

It’s never going to be enough.

At the beginning of the fifth week, Cas’s heat hits.

“Do they tie you to the bed here?” he asks Anna, when she comes to have morning tea with him.

She lights up a little.

“Good morning, and _no._ Alex says they never tie _anyone_ to the bed here, not unless they have a very specific kind of illness. Is it your heat?”

He nods, relieved. He’d hoped so, but . . .

“It’s much more comfortable, that way,” he sighs, and she snorts.

“To put it mildly.”

Anna might not suffer from his particular dysfunction — though honestly, it provides enough of a relief in those moments that a part of him pities her — but Cas found that even just being able to eat and drink on his own, or curl up on his side to nap, made a substantial difference.

“Anyway — who do I ask for supplies?”

Anna looks pleased.

“They gave you supplies, in Winchester? Well, I suppose if the prince wasn’t going to spend it with you . . .”

“He was not.” At the time, once he realized he’d simply be left to his own devices otherwise, Cas had been relieved — but now . . .

Maybe if Dean had stayed with him, had used the medicine or the accessories, so Cas wouldn’t have to worry — maybe Dean would have understood him, sooner. Maybe they could have been closer for longer, rather than wasting so much time on Dean’s ridiculous notions of murder.

_Maybe_ Dean would be generous with his kisses when it was _Cas_ in cycle, too.

He shifts on the bed, suddenly much more uncomfortable than he was a few moments ago, and Anna clears her throat.

“Ah. I suppose we don’t have time for tea, after all. I’ll hurry with supplies, okay?”

Cas gives her a grateful nod.

“And don’t forget the knife.” Cas can at least make a token effort, he reasons. Besides, at Mills Park, someone may want to see what he has to show for his efforts.

Anna freezes halfway out of her chair, blinking.

“I . . . beg your pardon?”

“The knife,” he repeats. “For the dowels.”

“For the — what?”

He hesitates.

“Are those not the right words? I need — in order to carve the wood, I need a tool of some kind. They only gave me the dowels, in Lawrence.”

Slowly, she straightens up, still looking bewildered.

“They — they made you carve _wood_ during your heat?”

“Well — not exactly. I couldn’t, without a knife, and to be honest, I did things I shouldn’t, anyway.” He shrugs. “No one seemed to be paying attention.”

Anna looks torn between delight and dismay.

“Good for you. But — they really told you to do wood carvings? I thought the capital was supposed to be progressive.”

“Do they not do that here?”

“Well, no, Cas. I don’t think they _could_ get anyone to do that _._ ”

That’s fair; when it became clear there was no risk of actual punishment, even if they would have _liked_ Cas to carve the dowels into something . . .

Well, his focus would have been somewhat divided, is all.

“Ah. I suppose the point is moot, then.” Though to be honest, a part of him is disappointed. Now that he knows it doesn’t have to be quite so much of an ordeal, he thought it might be nice to pick up a new skill. He doesn’t work as long as hours as he used to, nor does he do it every day. Without his friends and his garden — without _Dean —_ Cas finds himself with more empty hours than he cares to deal with.

“I could still try and find something like that, if you want?” Anna offers uncertainly, and Cas shakes his head.

“No, that’s alright. It’s probably for the best.” He pauses, frowning. “But — what ‘supplies’ did _you_ mean, then?”

Anna blinks.

And then she grins, slow and wide.

“Oh, Cas. Trust me, you are in for a _treat_.”

And despite the fact that Cas was tentatively looking forward to this so-called ‘treat’ -

Anna ultimately just brings him a single wooden dowel, anyway.

“I-I’m glad to see you looking so, um, so well, Castiel,” Samandriel says rather bashfully when he visits the day after Cas's heat ends, and while Cas is still squinting at him, trying to deduce the meaning of his stammering, the boy produces a small bouquet of white flowers from behind his back. “Please, will you — will you accept these?”

Cas is a little worried Samandriel is suffering from some sort of nervous distress, but the blooms are charming, fragrance wafting sweetly toward him, and he can’t help but brighten at the prospect of taking them back to his room with him.

Several of his flowers were just starting to bloom, when he left, and Cas often thinks about the fact that he will never get to see them, or his garden, in full. This is probably the one gesture Samandriel has made that Cas can honestly say he appreciates, beyond a grudging acknowledgment of his good intentions.

“Of course.” Cas offers him a small smile, and Samandriel looks stunned. “Thank you. They’re lovely.”

“Um.” Samandriel blinks, splotches of color appearing on his cheeks. “Oh! Yes, yes — of course. Thank _you,_ Castiel _—_ I — I was afraid it was too soon, but-” he clears his throat. “You — you’re the most beautiful, incredible person I’ve ever met. I thought so from the first, but you prove me right every single day I have the privilege of spending with you.”

Cas hesitates, gaze flicking down to the flowers in his hands.

“Thank you,” he eventually says. “That’s — well. You’re a very . . . warm-hearted young man.”

Samandriel beams.

“You know . . .” He clears his throat, smile turning a little shy. “Charlotte has a friend that’s always saying you _should_ find a young alpha, if you can. I know it’s not conventional, but — I _promise_ you won’t regret it, Castiel.”

Cas blinks.

“Won’t regret — what?”

“This,” Samandriel says, eyes shining as he reaches out, covering Cas’s hands with his own, the pair of them holding the bouquet together. “If — if you decide to see it through, I mean.”

Cas looks down at the blooms once again, bemused.

He has no idea what he’ll be seeing through.

“Um. I hope not,” he finally says, then gently tugs his hands free. “Well. Shall we have some coffee, then?”

“Please,” Samandriel agrees, and Cas swears he keeps glancing at him as they make their way to the terrace.

It’s not _that_ weird, though, so he simply resolves to ignore it.

Dean lasts a week before he cracks.

And honestly, he’s not really sure how it happens. One minute, he’s rummaging through his wardrobe for clean pajamas, fresh from the bath and ready to crawl into bed for one of the many, many naps he tends to take these days, and the next-

“Um — Dean? Are . . . are you okay?”

Dean blinks, forkful of pie halfway to his mouth.

“Oh. Sam. I didn’t hear you come in.” He hesitates, looking at the bite of cherry pie.

It doesn’t taste nearly as good as the one _Cas_ made him. Dean took tha t for granted, Cas making pies. He should have eaten the first one, even if it _had_ been poisoned, and since it wasn’t, he should have savored the second one, spent the whole damn day in the garden snuggling with Cas and pretending he never had to let him-

“Seriously, what the hell?”

Dean sets the bite down, squinting at his brother.

“What do you mean, what the hell?”

“What do I — dude, we were supposed to play games tonight! You’ve been blowing people off to nap all wee-” Sam cuts off, freezing. “Wait. Is that . . .”

“Huh?” God, Dean’s tired. Drunk and tired and wishing he had better cherry pie, because if he did, it would mean he still had something a million times more important than pie.

But you know, he thought about it a lot, those weeks in the dungeon, and as wrecked as he feels right now — he’s got no _right_. That thing that he had? That awesome, wonderful, perfect, sometimes-a-dick-but-mostly-just-sweet, way-better-than-pie thing he had?

He was never _supposed_ to. Dean’s not really in a should’ve/could’ve/would’ve situation here. It’s not really about what he did while Cas was still here; hell, as shitty as he feels about those first couple months, as many times as he wishes he could take them back — it’s probably for the best that he can’t. Dean was the worst sort of monster to Cas, and Cas _should_ remember that. If he’d let himself trail after Cas from day one, desperately trying to court the guy like the lovesick fool he is . . .

He could have _hurt_ Cas, in lasting, awful ways.

But at the end of the day, whatever he did or didn’t do — Cas and him never should have met, period. New Eden should have kept up with the rest of the kingdom, should never have been stoning little girls in the town square and prompting opportunistic Winchester kings to try and teach them a lesson over it. Cas should have grown up carefree and happy, and whatever he presented as, the town should have recognized him for the gift he was. Every single, remotely eligible person in the place should have been chasing after him, just like Dean originally thought they’d been. Maybe even all the traders would flock there, just to see him, to bring him gifts and beg his favor. Even stupid _Samandriel_ might have come through, might have charmed Cas with his stupid, sweet, endearingly earnest shtick, might have ended up the luckiest person in the whole damn world because of it.

Maybe-

“Dean,” Sam snaps, interrupting this undeniably accurate but nevertheless painful line of reasoning. He looks appalled. “Is that Cas’s festival portrait on the pillow next to you?”

Dean follows his gaze to the carefully perched frame, to Cas’s face, bewitchingly confused inside it, and he can’t help it. His eyes well up.

‘For Cas’s kids,’ he’d told himself, but that was a lie. Dean knows, now, that he never would have done that to Cas, no matter what it cost him.

That picture was for _Dean,_ because Cas wasn’t meant for him, wasn’t for him to have, and some part of Dean always knew it.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, shoving the bite of pie in his mouth to stop the tears. “Found it in my armoire. I mean, not _found_ it, I’m the one who left it there, but — you know. And I shouldn’t — shouldn’t even get this much, but it’s mine, and I’m not givin’ it up. Gonna sleep with it forever.”

“Dude, _no._ You can’t-” Sam breaks off again, comical in his disbelief. “Are you — oh, my God, Dean, are you seriously wearing one of his _nightgowns_?”

Dean sniffs, struggling to swallow the bite.

“It was his favorite. ‘Cause it’s like the sheets. He loves those sheets, man. Loves this whole damn bed.” Dean pets the mattress forlornly. “Maybe I should ship it to him. No way does he have anything like this in Mills Park.”

“I — okay, that’s not a terrible idea, but — Dean-” Sam gives him a helpless look, some offensive combination of shock and pity and horror lurking in there, and Dean scowls. If Sam’s gonna get all judgey about this, he can _leave_.

“How did you even find me?” he demands. “You weren’t coming to take some of his stuff, right? ‘Cause it’s still his, you know. Even if I’m gonna borrow the nightgown.”

“Dude, I’m not going to take his things. _Or_ borrow them.” Sam shakes his head. “And _Pamela_ told me you’d be in here.”

“How the fuck does Pam know?” he asks, though they both know it’s a dumb question.

Sam shrugs.

“If it helps, she told me you should have put on the lacy blue one. Which, now that I know what she probably _mean_ _t_ -” He makes a face. “Good choice.”

Dean hesitates, contemplating this for a moment, and then his shoulders slump.

“I made him feel weird about it, I think.”

“Huh?”

Dean waves his empty fork.

“The — lacy blue one. It was awkward, you know, thinkin’ about him in it — I’m too old to pop a boner in the middle of the day around polite company — but — I think — he didn’t think it would suit him. ‘Cause I was like that. He got it, anyway, since Pam told him to, but — fuck. I made him feel bad. I _always_ made him feel bad, just so _I_ wouldn’t. But I should have — should have ordered one for me. Told him everybody wore ‘em. Told him — fuck.” Dean sets down his fork, bringing a hand to his face and trying to blink back the sting in his eyes. “I should have told him he was gonna look beautiful in it.”

There’s a long silence.

“Just — what was I so afraid of?” Dean asks his damp palm, hoarse, and after a beat, Sam takes a deep breath.

“Probably ending up drunk in someone else’s nightgown, shoving pie in your face and trying not to cry?”

Dean snorts, except his amusement distracts himself from the whole trying-not-to-cry thing and then he hiccups and suddenly he _is_ crying, and Sam is by his side in an instant, firmly gripping his shoulder to keep him upright.

“Woah, woah, hey — Dean — _Dean,_ you — look, it’s going to be okay-”

“No, it isn’t!” Dean absolutely doesn’t wail, jerking out of Sam’s grasp. He miscalculates a little, pitching all the way over onto his face, but fortunately, he still misses the pie. “He’s _gone,_ Sammy, he _left_ me, I’m never — I’m never-”

Sam quickly helps him upright again.

“Shhh, Dean, no. You will. I’m sure you will.”

“I _won’t._ I can’t, and I’m not gonna — not gonna do that to him. Deserves better. Always did. Oh, God, Sammy, I fucked up _so bad_ -”

“I — maybe a little, but — Cas has a really big heart, he forgave you-”

“You don’t _know_ that!”

“I could tell, Dean. We all could. He really cared about you, okay?”

Dean shakes his head, face wet and itchy from his tears. It’s uncomfortable, and he turns his face into the nearest sleeve available, aggressively wiping it. The sleeve flinches.

“No, he didn’t,” Dean mumbles, when he’s done. “‘S’not real, if he did. Can’t be.”

“It can, Dean,” Sam says gently, and then after a pause, sort of pats his back. “Look — we know where he is. Why don’t you go after him? Not to bring him back, just — just to see him. At least get some closure.”

Closure is the _last_ thing Dean wants. Closure is for _endings,_ and Dean — maybe it’s technically over, but some part of Dean’s never really going to be able to let it go.

He doesn’t want to.

“No. No, he — he already said goodbye.” Clutched Dean’s shoulders and pressed into him and kissed him like he’d been starving for it, and even if Dean will never be able to think of that without feeling a little like his chest is splitting open, he’s still grateful.

Cas didn’t owe him shit, but — he gave it, anyway.

“But what about _you,_ Dean?” Sam insists, and Dean shakes his head.

“I don’t want to. I can’t.” Maybe it’s already happened, but Dean didn’t know and he didn’t have to say it, and that -

That’s how it’s going to stay.

There’s a frowny sort of silence, and Dean is wondering why he can’t see anything when the headboard his face is smushed into pulls away.

Sam appears, face grim as he steadies Dean.

“Fine. But you know what? He didn’t say goodbye to _me_ , or Charlie, or anybody else. And he wasn’t _yours,_ Dean. So — don’t go after him, if you can’t handle it. But if we want to? Then we will.”

It takes Dean a moment, caught on the _he’s not yours_ and the several liters of tears his body has apparently been shoring up in the dungeon.

“You . . . you’re gonna go after him?”

Sam gives him an even look.

“You aren’t the only one who deserves closure.”

Dean supposes that’s fair.

“Oh. Yeah. Okay. Don’t — you’ve gotta leave him be, okay? Don’t . . . don’t try to make him do anything.”

Sam sighs.

“We won’t, Dean. But — are you seriously not coming?”

Dean quickly shakes his head — a bad move, given how disgruntled his stomach is suddenly feeling about the inferior pie — and gingerly leans back against the stack of Cas’s soft, fluffy pillows.

“Told you. I can’t.”

Sam studies him, lips pursed.

Then he sighs.

“We’ll talk when you’re sober,” he mutters cryptically. “But — come on. You need to go back to your own room.”

Despite the gastrointestinal revolution taking place, Dean shakes his head again.

“No. M’staying here.” He sighs, head lolling toward the portrait on the pillow next to him. “With Cas. Or what I’ve got left of him, anyway.”

He swears Sam’s eye twitches.

“Dean.”

“Look, just go away, Sammy. You — you’ll understand when you’re older.”

Sam takes a deep breath.

“Right. Okay. You just — stay put, for now, and — I’ll get the others and we’ll play some Go Fish while you sober up, okay?”

Sam rummages around the sheets as he says it, and Dean’s confused for a little while before he finally huffs out an ‘aha!’ and pulls out Dean’s half-empty bottle of whiskey.

“Just this one, right?”

Dean carefully avoids looking at the pillow with a bottle of grape schnapps underneath it.

“Yeah.”

Satisfied, Sam tucks the whiskey under his arm and points a stern finger at Dean.

“ _Stay._ And — try not to wallow, okay? I’ll be back _as soon as I can._ ”

With that, he leaves, throwing one last suspicious glance over his shoulder.

“Stay,” he repeats.

Dean quickly downs the rest of the schnapps as soon as the door’s shut behind him.

“Hey, uh. Sorry about last night. And — Charlie’s cards.”

Charlie just looks at him, murder in her eyes, Sam shifting uncomfortably beside her.

“They were _custom-made._ Hand-painted by Belladonna herself!”

“Right, right, I know — I’m really sorry. I’ll commission some more for you.”

“But will I be able to _use_ them without getting phantom smells of weird, purple grape-y _vomit_?”

Dean looks away guiltily.

“Well.” He coughs. “Let me know.”

She huffs.

“You’re lucky you’re heartbroken.”

Dean sighs, rubbing his aching head.

“Doesn’t feel like it,” he mutters, and Charlie’s eyes soften.

“You really should come with us, you know. He’s going to be upset if you don’t.”

“I doubt that. He already got — what was Sam saying? Closure, from me.” Dean shakes his head. “Nah. There’s no point.”

Besides. In the sober, deeply nauseating light of day with a Cas-less Castle closing in all around him, Dean’s realized something.

Even if he _did_ go, he’s honestly not sure he wouldn’t just put Cas over his shoulder like dickbag alphas of yore and carry him back to the castle a second time.

And no, he’s not proud of it, but he’s not stupid enough to risk it, either.

“There might-”

“Please,” Dean interrupts quietly, shaking his head. “I mean it. Please stop. I know you’re trying to help, but — this is — I _can’t._ So, _please,_ just — stop asking.”

They’re silent, exchanging cautious glances, but Dean’s feeling too raw and exhausted to snark at them over it. If they want to be careful with him, fine.

Maybe he _does_ need it.

“Okay,” Charlie says eventually, scooting over and patting his knee. “But — and _think_ about it for a little while, before you answer — you should at least send a letter with us.”

“No,” he says immediately. “

Sam and Charlie look at each other again.

“Alright. That’s totally your decision. But — if you do decide you want to reconsider — Dad said we couldn’t go until after the party from Fenshire leave.”

“Which is about ten days from now,” Charlie adds helpfully. “They’re here, by the way. If you wanted to, you know, put in a princely appearance or something.”

Dean scowls.

“I went to dinner.”

“ _Once_. And you only ate half of it. And then you stared sullenly at the other half for the rest of the meal.”

“So the dungeon killed my appetite, sue me. This shit takes time to come back.”

Charlie rubs her temples.

“ _Anyway._ We had to tell his Majesty you had _horrible_ diarrhea, or you would have come to give your excuses yourself.”

“I’m fine with that.”

“ _Dean._ A usually healthy person can only be having debilitating bowel movements for so long before people get worried and send them to the infirmary!”

Which — that gives Dean pause. Sneaking out to sleep in Cas’s room will be way more difficult, since the infirmary has a nightwatch.

“Fine. I’ll . . . go to dinner.”

They both frown.

“And I’ll do the stupid hunt with the men on Friday. Happy?”

“No, but it’ll have to do,” she mutters.

Dean almost laughs.

He knows the feeling.

“So. I trust you’re feeling better, son?”

Dean hesitates, trying not to look at the table full of people or think about how they all assume he spent the last week excreting in agony.

“Uh. Yes, your Majesty. By a lot. Thank you.”

John nods, face impassive, although Dean thinks his lip twitches.

“Good. I’m glad you could finally join us.”

Dean swallows.

“Likewise. Sorry for the, uh. Delay.”

George sniffs, though he looks reluctantly sympathetic.

“Well. These are hardly things you can control.”

“That’s kinda the whole problem,” Gordon mutters next to him, looking amused, and George gives him a sharp look.

“Such things are no laughing matter, Walker.”

Gordon sobers, nodding very seriously.

“Absolutely not,” he agrees. He raises his brows at Dean as soon as George turns away.

Dean smothers his laugh with a cough.

“In any case,” John interjects, rubbing his mouth nonchalantly. “As promised, we’ve discussed the issues you brought before the council prior to your dungeon stay. Tara?”

Tara nods and straightens the papers in front of her.

“In the interests of the unity of Winchester and the future opportunities of New Eden’s children, who are under law equal to the civilian children of the rest of Winchester, we will ensure the availability of these opportunities and the knowledge required to make decisions regarding the pursuit of them by establishing a school and administering a curriculum in keeping with that of the rest of the kingdom.” She takes a deep breath. “Naturally, this will be overseen by a capital representative to ensure compliance. Likewise, we will send law enforcement representatives to ensure full compliance with Winchester’s constitution, in addition to requiring autopsies on all premature deaths.

“Finally,” she continues, grimacing. “We will be abolishing the New Eden tradition.”

Dean sucks in a breath, gaze flying to his dad’s.

“I — really?”

John inclines his head.

“There _was_ a point to it, Dean. However, a thorough examination of the census and audit reports suggest you were correct in doubting its efficacy. In light of that — we’re obligated to find a different solution.”

“Right. Right, yeah, that makes sense, I just — I assumed -”

“You assumed we sit around the table plotting the suffering of others, I’m sure,” his father says dryly. “While we may have competing priorities, we are all honor-bound to act in the greatest interest of the kingdom, and we try to do so.”

Dean swallows.

“Of course,” he says meekly. “Uh. But what if they _don’t_ comply?”

Tara perks up.

“In the event that New Eden proves to be a lost cause, the town will be dispersed — as some of us felt it should be, anyway — and force will be used, if necessary, to ensure they do not attempt to resettle.”

“Oh.” Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. Sure, they’ll probably be pissed about the mandatory curriculum thing, given their argument for why they should be allowed to kill their kids, but — it’s better than dispersion.

(Though based on what _Cas_ has said — Dean kind of thinks they might deserve that, anyway.)

“I trust your Highness is satisfied?” she drawls, brow raised, and Dean quickly nods.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Of course, we’re still determining logistics, so whatever we’ve discussed — it doesn’t leave this room.”

“That includes Sam,” John adds, and then after a pause: “As well as Miss Bradbury.”

Which seems like a sort of specific inclusion, but whatever.

“Okay.”

“Oh, and since this issue is so dear to your heart-” Tara says, sifting through her parchment stack. “Ah, yes. Here’s the criteria for the enforcers, and a list of potential candidates. See to it that you meet with all of them, and that appropriate selections are made.”

She shoves a stack of papers at him, and Dean can tell there’s at least fifty names on the top sheet.

Which — yeah.

Dean probably should have seen that one coming.

The day before Sam and Charlie leave for Mills Park, Dean finally caves.

The truth is, he’s been thinking about this letter for the last ten days, about what on earth he could possibly say to Cas. Part of him’s tempted to fill it with extraneous detail about the council’s plans for New Eden, with the evidence that for once, Dean and the kingdom he stands by are going to at least _try_ to do the right thing, but the council swore him to silence and as much as Cas deserves the reassurance that what happened to him won’t happen to anyone else-

It feels wrong, somehow. Like if that’s all Dean’s going to do with his words, he shouldn’t be sending any at all.

Anyway, he goes back and forth on whether he’s actually going to do it, but what to say and how to say it are never far from his thoughts, and by the time he’s got less than twelve hours before the two of them ride out . . .

He sits down at his escritoire and gets to work.

He’s still working when the dawn starts coming through the curtains, and by the time the sun is bright and the sky is blue and he’s hastily sealing it up and throwing on clothes to go see the party off, he knows it’s still far from perfect.

But — he thinks it might be worth sending, anyway.

Charlie gives him a completely unnecessary hug when he staggers into the sunlit courtyard, and then she pinches his cheek for good measure.

“I knew you could do it.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. No peeking, alright?”

She looks offended.

“I would never!”

Dean nods at Sam.

“Make sure ‘never’ means what it’s supposed to,” he says, and thrusts the envelope into his hands. “Safe travels, guys. Make sure he’s — that he’s really doing okay.”

“Of course.”

Dean takes a deep breath, ignoring the familiar pang of doubt about whether he’s right to stay behind.

“I’m going to bed, then. See you in a week or two.”

And with a final wave, he heads back to the castle to sleep.

Cas returns to work the second day after his heat, and when his shift is over, the overseer calls out to him.

“Mr. Novak! There you are.”

Cas waits, a little uneasy. He likes the docks, because no one really bothers him, here, but when he goes through town or wanders Mills Park, people don’t hesitate to ask him questions or offer their sympathies for all he’s been through.

“Yes?”

Mr. Dryer withdraws a little satchel from his pocket and tosses it to him. Cas holds out his hands to catch it on reflex, startled by the weight of it, as well as by the clinking sound it makes.

“Your first two weeks’ wages,” Mr. Dryer says with a smile.

Cas blinks, staring at the satchel.

“I . . . but why are you giving it to me?”

“You did the work, son. Who else would I give it to?”

“Wouldn’t — someone at Mills Park? They’re housing me.”

He cocks his head.

“Well, that’s for you to sort out with them. Go on home and have some dinner now. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

He heads off, and after a minute of confusion, Cas tucks away the satchel.

He can’t remember ever having handled money, before, and it makes him nervous to have it, though there’s a coach to take him and the girls who work in town the bulk of the journey back.

Anyway, he hides it in his pillowcase, not sure what else to do, and when Anna comes to sit with him after they dine, he takes it out.

“The overseer gave this to me,” he explains, and Anna lights up. “For my work so far. Will you give it to whoever it’s owed to?”

“Of course, Cas. And congratulations,” she adds, smile warm, though he’s not sure what he’s done to warrant them.

But then Anna starts counting out a portion of the coins, and when she’s done, she pushes the remainder back toward him.

Cas stares at the pile.

“I don’t understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t they take all of it?”

Her brows lift.

“No? We have to contribute, obviously, since we’re staying here, but — not all of it. The rest of it is yours.”

He swallows.

“Mine?”

“Yes. Keep it somewhere safe, if you’re not going to spend it. And I recommend you save at least some. I don’t see anything changing, but you never know, and it’s very difficult to be without any money, when you’re on your own.”

“I — keep it where? And spend it on what?”

“I keep mine in my walking boots, beneath the bed, though we shouldn’t need to worry too much, here. And you can spend it on whatever you’d like, Cas.”

“I don’t — what do you spend yours on?”

Anna hesitates.

“I save all of mine, for the most part.” She smiles ruefully. “Like I said, Cas. It’s very difficult out there, without money. But I did — I — I bought some lace. Like the kind I used for Rebecca Adler’s wedding dress.”

“Oh.”

She looks down, cheeks a little red.

“It was silly. What a frivolous way to spend it, right? I don’t even know what I’ll _do_ with it — I’m not sure what I was thinking. Just . . . I think that was the most beautiful thing I ever made. It was wrong, but part of me hated that I had to hand it over in the end. And when I saw the lace in the shop, and I remembered it . . .”

Cas remembers that dress, too, and it _was_ beautiful. Cas will always think the dress he wore on the Drive is the most beautiful, but Rebecca’s was a close second, though he never even saw it on anyone. And he thinks his sister deserves to have something like that, too.

Of course, _his_ dress is back at the castle, with all the other clothing he chose, and he’ll probably never see it again.

“You should make yourself something pretty.”

She sighs.

“To wear _where_? It’s completely impractical, Cas.”

He shakes his head.

“Make a nightgown, then. I didn’t — I didn’t go anywhere. But I had . . . _beautiful_ clothes, at the castle. It felt good to wear them.” Part of him wishes he’d worn his own lacy nightgown. It was indecent and unbecoming, pretty though it might have been, and even in the privacy of his own bed, he never thought he’d have the nerve to wear it.

He should have, anyway. He’s not going to have another chance, now.

“Anyway,” he continues. “When he took me to town, Dean said — he said, even if I didn’t need something now, I might want to need it someday. I believe it’s — an act of faith. That the future may give you the things you want, after all.”

Anna studies him, brow creased, in that way that always means she has something she wants to say.

But eventually, she just shakes her head and smiles.

“Alright. Maybe I will. Anyway — I would just save your wages, for now. Think about what you might like.”

Cas nods, though he has little interest in most things, these days.

Perhaps he’ll buy his _own_ carving knife, if people will so often forget to include it. If this is a skill that the majority of Winchester omegas possess, he hardly wants to add it to his already long list of failures.

“Alright. You do the same, Anna.”

“We’ll see,” she sighs.

They sip their tea and watch the sun set over the river, after that, and he thinks it might be the most comfortable silence they’ve shared since he first arrived.

He hopes it bodes well for his future here.

Cas is sitting with his sister in the parlor — he supposes he ought to have anticipated her request to join him in her near-nightly lectures, but alas, he naively thought he’d be done after the interview, at least apart from all the _questions_ he constantly gets — when Alex knocks.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt, but — Castiel has visitors.”

Anna looks alarmed, hand flying to her skirt, over her thigh, for some reason.

“As in the armed kind, from the capital?”

Alex slowly shakes her head.

“Not armed, but — yeah, from the capital.”

Cas stands without thinking, heart racing in his chest.

“Dean?” he asks, searching her face for some clue as to the answer.

She raises a placating hand.

“No, don’t worry. He didn’t come after you.” Cas’s heart sinks. “A redhead and a tall guy who needs a haircut. Said they were friends of yours, though I’d kind of thought . . .”

It is a testament to his disappointment that it takes so long for him to register the significance of this description, but when he does, the disappointment multiplies tenfold.

He briefly closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, trying to crowd out the sudden ache.

“Alright. I’ll — I’ll see them. Thank you, Alex. Please excuse me, Anna — everyone.” He nods toward the party scattered across the room’s seating, and quickly makes his way into the hall.

“You alright?” Alex asks, looking speculative, and he nods. “You sure? I can get Billie to come stare at them till they leave.”

Despite himself, Cas manages a small laugh.

“No. That won’t be necessary. If they’re who I think they are, then they are indeed my friends.”

They turn the corner, into the foyer, and there, beaming from just inside the doors, are Sam and Charlie, just as he suspected.

“Damn right we are!” Charlie crows, and then she nimbly closes the distance and throws herself into his arms.

And though there’s an acute sadness, looking over her shoulder to confirm that yes, only Sam remains — he’s able to smile anyway.

“Hello, Charlie,” he whispers, and tightly hugs her back.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: references to sexism, one-sided Samandriel/Cas, please let me know if I missed anything.

Alex hovers in the foyer with them, watching Sam and Charlie suspiciously, but the pair either don’t notice or are determined to pretend not to, and when Charlie is done squeezing him, Sam shuffles forward with a wave.

“Hey, Cas.” He smiles, though he looks a little unsure. “It’s really good to see you.”

A month ago, before he left, Cas still didn’t hug Sam goodbye. Much as Cas has grown to like hugs, to consider Sam a dear friend, such a thing seemed awkward.

Now, though —

Awkward though it still may be, Cas steps forward and embraces him, because if Sam is willing, Cas cannot afford to forgo hugs from the people he cares about — people he doesn’t know when or if he’ll see again.

“Oh — hey—" Sam draws in a breath, and then Cas is being engulfed, perhaps even lifted off his feet a little. Sam’s hair falls in Cas’s face, and though it’s undeniably itchy and uncomfortable, it still seems like such an incredibly _Sam_ thing to happen that Cas feels a lump in his throat and he can’t bring himself to really object. “Cas, we’ve been missing you like crazy.”

That lump seems to double in size.

“You have?”

Sam releases him, stepping back with wide eyes.

“Of course we did. You’re our friend. Maybe — part of our family, even.”

Cas blinks. Much as the prospect appeals, he can’t imagine any of them are related, and if he _were_ family to Sam, then he’d be family to Dean, and he’s not sure the things he wants from Dean are acceptable things to want from your family.

“I don’t know how we could possibly be—"

Charlie snorts.

“Not like that,” she says quickly, but she’s staring at his face, a warm look in her eyes, and it puts Cas in mind of Anna, watching him when he first woke up in his room here.

He decides, then, that Charlie really did miss him.

“I missed you, too. All of you.” He hesitates, looking between them. “Are you . . . um. Dean, is he — is he . . .” _Is he going to come, to_ _o_ _?_ he wants to ask, but the words stick, shy in his throat, and all he can manage is: “Is he well?”

There’s an unsettling pause from both of them, and Cas’s stomach sinks.

“You didn’t — is that why you came, now? Is he—"

“He’s fine.” Sam reaches out, lightly touching his shoulder, and Cas calms, though he can’t help but search Sam’s expression for some sort of caveat. “Just, um . . . actually, is there somewhere we can sit and talk?”

“Yes,” Cas says immediately, nodding to the stairs. “I have a room here. If you wait a moment, I’ll prepare a tea tray.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Alex interjects, doubt plain, and Cas frowns at her.

“What’s wrong with having tea?”

Her lips twitch, though she still looks uneasy.

“Going to your room with them.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? They always visited me in my room, before.”

“Yeah, but . . .” she looks to the side, nose scrunching. “Okay. It’s your decision. Shout if you need anything, though.”

He’s not sure what he could need, but he supposes he appreciates the option, anyway. Emergencies are rarely predictable.

“Thank you. Sam — Charlie? Do you mind waiting in the kitchens with me?”

For a moment, the two of them simply stay put, looking at him, a slight smile on each of their faces.

Then Charlie shakes her head, sashays forward, and tucks her arm through one of his.

“Lead the way, Cas.”

Cas experiences a bout of nerves when they approach his door, because while he grudgingly thinks his room here has its own particular sort of charm, it’s hardly what Sam and Charlie will be used to. He hates the idea of them being uncomfortable on their visit to see him.

He’s still shocked they came in the first place — that they _missed_ him — and he doesn’t want them to regret it.

“Sorry, it — it’s small, compared to the rooms we usually spend time in,” he starts, awkwardly pushing the door open with his hip. “And the chairs aren’t quite as comfortable, but you can sit on the bed, if you like — though that also isn’t — but wherever is best.”

“I’m sure it’s great, Cas,” Sam says quickly, and Charlie bobs her head.

“Yup. You could make us drink our tea in a dirty bathtub and we’d still just be glad to see you.”

“I would never,” he insists, though it puts a warm, pleasant feeling in his chest, and he goes to set the tea tray down with a little more confidence.

Mills Park is incredibly far, to be visiting him, but — maybe, if they have fun the way they used to, Sam and Charlie might do it again, someday.

And if they did, even if the times were few and far between, then maybe on one of them, Dean might even-

“Oh,” Charlie says abruptly, sounding dismayed, and Cas quickly turns, tearing himself away from his hopeful thoughts.

“What?”

She’s looking at the table beyond him, a little bit shocked — Sam appears to be doing the same, for that matter — and though she seems to be trying to smile, she mostly just looks . . .

Upset.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder, trying to search out the problem.

There’s a long pause.

“Just . . . your flowers.” Beside her, Sam has moved his gaze to Cas, and past being upset, he almost looks _betrayed._ “White chrysanthemums, huh? Did you . . . pick those, or something, or — or did someone give them to you?”

“My flowers?” Cas blinks, baffled by their reaction. If anything, he thinks flowers always make for a much nicer tableset.

Unless — might one of them be allergic?

“Samandriel gave them to me,” he explains uncertainly. “But if they bother you—"

“ _Samandriel_?” Sam interjects, sounding horrified. “The — the boy who came to — but — he’s _here_ ? And you — _white chrysanthemums_?”

Cas sees one of Charlie’s elbows fly out, knocking into Sam’s side, but he doesn’t even flinch, brow furrowed and lips pursed.

“I don’t understand,” Cas finally says. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Charlie assures him, but the smile she gives him is unmistakably tense. “Obviously. You know, that’s — your choice. _Obviously_ ,” she repeats, then looks grim. “Choices are important.”

“Right, but—" Sam starts, and her elbow moves again.

“ _Anyway._ Tea! News. Cas needs to tell us how he’s been, right? And I wouldn’t say no to hearing about your daring escape from the castle,” she adds, though her cheer is clearly strained.

Cas is so confused.

But he gestures for them to sit in the chairs, picking up his teacup and perching on the edge of the bed, himself.

“How, um. How was the journey here?” he asks.

_Would you be willing to make it again?_ he wants to add, but refrains.

“Not bad at all,” Charlie assures him, and he tries not to get his hopes up. “Of course, it’s a visit sanctioned by His Majesty, so we got to take the nice carriage.”

Cas blinks.

“King John — approved?”

She makes a face.

“I mean. Sort of? But also not.”

“He doesn’t really know,” Sam explains, and Cas nods. That makes more sense.

But Charlie scrunches her nose at that.

“Well, he might.”

“What? No, he doesn’t. He would never have let us come.”

“You’d think, but — like, his _face_ when you asked to go on the same river tour Donna’s niece did. I’m pretty sure he was laughing at us.”

Sam just frowns.

“No, that — there’s no way. I mean, yeah, he might have been _laughing_ at us, but he _never_ takes me seriously. Probably thinks I should have gone on a training retreat in the mountains instead, or something like that.”

She looks doubtful.

“If you say so.”

“Anyway — we’re here for three days, if you, um. If you have some time.”

“Of course. If I didn’t, I’d make it.” Cas looks down. “I — I have missed you, very much. I was . . . when I realized what Anna had done, I—"

_All I wanted to do was go back._

Sam and Charlie exchange puzzled glances.

“What . . . Anna had done?”

“I know — this was Dean’s plan, all along, so it shouldn’t make a difference, but — but it would have been my preference to wait.”

He gets blank stares in return.

“Cas,” Sam says finally. “How did you get out of the castle?”

Cas sighs, staring forlornly into his cup.

“Layla and Tessa drugged me and carried me out to the coach. Billie drove us back.”

There’s a stunned silence.

Then:

“They did _what_ ?” Charlie exclaims, setting her teacup down with a clatter. “That — are you saying you didn’t _want_ to go?”

“Well, no. Again, Dean planned for me to go with Anna in the end, anyway, but—"

“But they should have _asked_ you!” she cries, and if Cas is being honest, the distress in her face is gratifying.

He, too, would like it if people asked him his opinion before they did things to him.

“Okay. Okay, if that’s the case — I mean, I know you — and the —" Sam, significantly less articulate than when last Cas saw him, gestures vaguely toward the bunch of white flowers, gaze a little resentful, “But maybe you could still—"

The door flies open with a bang, Anna breathing hard and tendrils of hair escaping from her neat chignon as she storms into the room.

She glances suspiciously about, eyes narrowed, hand hovering over her thigh again.

“Cas,” she says evenly. “Are you okay?”

Cas can’t help it.

He grits his teeth.

“Yes. Hello, Anna.”

“Sorry I’m late. I needed to clear out the parlor,” she mutters, then turns her stare to the table. “Why are _you_ here?”

Charlie frowns back.

“Um, we wanted to visit?”

“To visit.” Her mouth tightens, and she lifts her chin. “He’s not going back with you. Find another _body_ for his highness’s heirs, because I will burn your castle to the _ground_ before I let you take him a second time.”

They look askance.

“ _W_ _hat_? No, we’re not — that’s not why we’re here!”

“Why, then?” she demands, and Charlie scowls, standing.

“Because he’s our _friend_ _,_ and we didn’t get to say goodbye before _somebody_ kidnapped him out of the castle!”

Anna blinks.

And then she laughs, dark and humorless.

“Your friend. I wonder at the capital’s notion of the word. Six months,” she adds quietly. “Six _months_ he was there, waiting for the worst, and neither one of you lifted a finger to try and help him. Maybe you provided him comfort. Maybe you managed to assuage your own guilt at something you knew was wrong. But you were _not_ a friend to him.”

Charlie’s eyes widen, and Cas swears the left one might twitch.

Then she starts rolling up her sleeves, and Sam suddenly stands, too, hastily putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Charlie,” he says quietly, and she huffs, shaking her head.

“How _dare_ she—"

“How dare _you—"_ Anna starts, and Cas sighs.

“This is pointless,” he interrupts. “Anna, Sam and Charlie are my friends, whatever your opinions about it may be. I am — extremely happy to see them, but they are not here to take me back to the castle.”

_Unfortunatel_ y.

“You don’t _know_ that—"

“Oh, but he _does_ , because Cas knows he can trust _us_ not to make him do anything against his will—"

“Cas is _obviously_ at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing who he can _trust_ —"

“Cas wants you both to _shut up_ ,” Cas growls, and the pair look stunned. “Anna — sit down or leave. Charlie, please tell me how you and Sam have been. And . . .” He takes a deep breath. “Tell me how Dean has been, too. Please.”

Anna looks torn, Charlie chastened, but after a few moments, Anna comes to settle next to him on the bed.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, and he sighs.

“It’s fine.”

He hands her his cup of tea to occupy her, though — just in case.

Charlie clears her throat.

“So . . . actually — Dean sent a letter with us.”

Cas goes still.

“A letter?” He blinks. “For — me?”

She nods.

If Dean did have things to say, after all, Cas isn’t sure why he couldn’t come, too — though perhaps he simply had other obligations, or his father denied him — but a letter means there’s _something,_ and Cas can’t help the hope that blossoms within him at the knowledge.

He instinctively holds out his hand.

“Of course,” Charlie says, reaching for her reticule. “Although — maybe you want to wait until you’re alone—"

“No,” Cas says immediately. If Dean sent a letter with them, Cas is reading it now. If anything, he’s a little upset they didn’t give it to him downstairs in the foyer. “I’ll read it now.”

“Oh. Okay.” She fishes it out and awkwardly hands it over. “We could leave—"

“Actually, I think I’ll stay—" Anna starts.

“I don’t care,” he interrupts, impatiently picking at the seal until it breaks, and they fall silent.

Eagerly, he slips the folded stack of parchment out — three sheets, he notes, torn between pleasure and disappointment. Not a thoughtless missive, but — less than he’d hoped for.

(But then, he thinks, even a hundred wouldn’t feel like enough.)

He carefully unfolds them, smoothing them out in his shaking hands, and begins to read:

_Dear Cas,_

_First, I hope you’re doing well. Better than well. I know you’ve been missing your sister like crazy, and I’m really happy you got to see her sooner rather than later. Donna’s niece said it looked like you’d settled in okay, that you guys were getting the support you needed, and I don’t think I can tell you how glad I am. You deserve that, both of you. And I hope it’s all smooth sailing from here._

Cas tries not to frown. He appreciates the thought, of course, but — he’s not sure how he feels about Dean expressing ‘gladness.’

_Second thing — you’ve probably been worried about fallout, since_ _you ended up having to take matters into your own hands, but — don’t. Don’t worry about a thing, Cas. You guys are all set. Nobody’s coming after you, and you’re not in trouble. So, if that’s been weighing on your mind, it doesn’t need to be. I swear, buddy — you’re free to go._

Which is certainly reassuring — everyone had been wondering, expecting retaliation of _some_ kind — but the circumstances still confuse Cas and again — it’s not really what he was hoping to find in here.

_Now — the other stuff._

_I know I said I was sorry, before, but — you deserve to hear it again. I’m a coward, Cas. King or not, I should never have gone to New Eden in the first place. I’m glad I did, if it’s what had to happen for you to get where you are now, but I didn’t know that and the right thing to do would have been to fight it. Whether it was your sister or you — somebody should have been fighting for you, and that somebody should have been me._

_But I didn’t. I took you away, and I treated like you garbage, the first couple months. I’m sorry about the Drive —_ _I should have told you, or at least let Pamela tell you_ _— and I’m sorry about all the stupid cracks I made about your garden and you killing me and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, when you must have been struggling. And I am really, really sorry about that first pie. That’s one of the nicest things anybody’s ever done for me, especially someone I’d been hurting that badly, and I should have appreciated it. I’m a piece of shit, Cas, and you deserved better from me._

_I’m just — so, so sorry, Cas. I always will be. I don’t know if it helps, and I owe you a thousand more apologies, but you should at least know that much._

_But past being sorry, what I should have said to you, what I would have said if I’d known you were leaving already — is thank you._

_Because as shitty as I was, not once did you treat me like it._

_And I know that for you — this is something you need_ _to forget about and put behind you, but I just want you to know that for_ _ me _ _,_ _the months I spent with you_ _were some of the best times of my life. And that’s wrong, I shouldn’t have gotten that much out of it, not when you were_ _probably suffering_ _so_ _much_ _, but it’s true, and I just want to say thank you for that. You’_ _ve become_ _one of_ _the_ _best friends_ _I ever had,_ _Cas._ _Probably the best._ _You should have hated me, should have tried to make my life as hard as possible — probably_ _ should _ _have been trying to kill me — but you were_ _always_ _polite and then you forgave me_ _when I realized what a moron I’d been_ _and then — you were a really good friend to me._ _You let me work in your garden and share meals with you and you made me laugh every single day_ _and I will always, always be thankful to you for that._

_I learned so much from you, Cas. You made me a better man, by far — which maybe isn’t saying much, given where I started out, but it is what it is, and I’m grateful for that, too. And believe me, you should do your best to forget me and write all this off as a bad dream, but I have to say — I am never, ever going to forget the last six months, not as long as I live, and I would never want to._

_You deserve all the happiness in the world and then some, Cas. If I think too hard about what we took from you, how we let you down, it makes me sick. But even if I can’t turn back time — anything you ever need, buddy. You name it. Send word to the castle and I swear, I’ll move heaven and earth. Even if it’s just something you_ _ want _ _, all you have to do is let me know. I owe you so much,_ _more than I could ever_ _say, and more than I could ever give back._

_In the meantime — I hope you get everything you ever wanted, even the things you didn’t know you wanted. I hope you’re happy with your sister, and I hope, if you want, that you meet someone who makes you even happier. I hope you always have friends, and you always have family, and you always have windows that fucking open. Your world should be full of flowers and coffee and_ _pretty drawers and_ _stuff to look forward to, and you should never have to think twice about any of it, because you deserve to get everything you want and_ _then_ _take it_ _all_ _for granted. You_ _are_ _the best person I_ _have_ _ever met, Cas,_ _and I know everybody else you meet is going to feel the same._

_It was a privilege to get to know you as much as I did. You’ve changed me, and even if it’s too late to make a difference to you, I promise you I am going to keep trying to be better than I was. Some good news should be headed your way, and I hope that, at least, will be worth something, even if I can’t_ _fix_ _what’s already happened._

_Stay well, Cas. I hope you have a long, wonderful life, and you never want for a_ _god_ _damn thing._

_Your fr-_

The rest of the closing swims and disappears, Cas’s fingers pinching the pages together and crumpling them, the tips bloodless.

He doesn’t understand.

“Cas?” Anna asks gently, and like it’s someone else’s body, he sees her reach out to put a hand on his back. “Are you—"

“No,” he mumbles, preempting the question. “ _N_ _o,_ this — this is wrong.” Cas knows it, he’s sure of it. He’d rather have been left to wonder than get a letter like _this._

He doesn’t know what he expected. He’d thought he hadn’t expected to see or hear from Dean again at all. But he must have, because this — this is-

“He’s never going to see me again,” Cas chokes out, and that is the true problem with this letter. It is kind and affectionate and horrifically _final,_ in a way Cas is never really going to be ready for.

Charlie’s face falls.

“What did he — can I —"

Cas practically throws the stack of papers at her, wanting it and all its awful blasphemy as far from him as possible. It comes apart in the air, and she lurches out of her chair, gathering it back up and searching out the first sheet.

They wait in silence, Cas struggling to breathe, something thick and terrible welling up inside him, pinching his lungs together and making him sick. Anna outright hugs him at some point, but he barely feels it, can hardly see through the tears, because Dean is — is _done_ with him.

Abruptly, Charlie grunts, tossing the letter aside and making a strange, flailing motion before she pivots, marching toward the corner and dropping into a crouch.

She buries her face in her folded arms and, if Cas, in his distress, understands correctly-

Screams into them.

He’s so startled he stops crying.

“Charlie?”

“That — that — _gah_! How can someone so fucking _stupid_ even still be _alive_?”

“Well—" Sam starts, and Charlie groans.

“Don’t _even._ You’re an idiot, too, Sam, you’re still just working up to your big moment.”

Sam looks offended.

“Hey—"

She jumps to her feet with a huff.

“Your dumbass brother told him to have a wonderful life. A _wonderful life_!” she repeats, high and strained. “ _Why is he like this_?”

“Look, in Dean’s defense—"

“There is literally nothing that excuses that kind of—"

“Charlie, he thought Cas said _goodbye_ to him.”

Cas sucks in a breath.

The room is quiet for a moment.

“Then he _is_ an idiot,” he snaps, suddenly outraged. “I did no such thing. I didn’t even know I was going anywhere.”

“Right, but he didn’t know that. He thought you’d been planning it for a while. That — whatever happened, the last night you were there, you were trying to say goodbye to him.”

Cas clenches his fists, bitterness rising within.

“I wouldn’t have let him leave after so few kisses if I were saying _goodbye,_ ” he snarls, and then he shakes off Anna’s arm, standing. “I have to go back. I have to—"

“Cas, _no,_ ” she says quickly, hastening after him. “You have no idea what they’ll do to you if you go back. If Dean’s ready to let you go—"

“ _I don’t want him to let me go_!” he shouts, and though Anna flinches, she doesn’t look surprised.

“I know you think you feel that way—"

“Um, maybe because he _does_?” Charlie interrupts, derision plain.

“Quiet,” Anna hisses. “He was a _prisoner,_ and you all took part in it.”

“And now he’s _not_ , so let him do what he _wants!_ ”

Anna grits her teeth.

“Obviously, it’s his choice, but—"

“But _what,_ Anna?” Cas demands. “But it isn’t? But it’s the wrong one, so I’m not really allowed to choose it? No,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s not my choice. It’s never my choice.”

“Cas — it _is,_ but — but _yes,_ it’s the wrong one. Even your — whatever you think you feel about Dean aside, if you go back to the castle, there’s no telling what will happen to you. It’s just — safe, to stay here.”

Sam clears his throat.

“Actually — Cas is in the clear.”

Anna throws him a suspicious look.

“Meaning what?”

“They were going to send people after you, but — Dean told them he let Cas go.”

Anna scowls.

“Why would he do that?”

“To protect you guys, obviously.”

“But—" She frowns, shoulders tensing. “If it was that easy, why didn’t he do it sooner?”

Sam makes a face.

“Gee, I don’t know, maybe because they sent him to the dungeons for three weeks? And they could have done even worse, if they’d felt like it.”

Cas just stares at him, horror pinching at his nerves.

“He went to the dungeon _?_ For three weeks?”

“Yeah, Cas,” Sam says quietly, eyes sad, and Cas sits back down on the bed, stunned.

Cas only spent a night there, and while it was far from being the worst conditions he could imagine, Dean’s unaccustomed to such things. What’s more, he doesn’t deserve to become so.

Three weeks.

Three _weeks._

Cas thought, when he woke up in this room, in this sad, inferior bed, and realized what had happened, he was as angry at Anna as he would ever be.

He was wrong.

“Listen, Cas,” Sam continues urgently. “Dean — he should tell you some things himself, but — just so you know, he really — he wants you there.”

Despair crowds in at the edges of Cas’s fury.

“I’m not sure he does. He seemed very eager to send me away, while I was there.” He swallows. “And — in his letter, he seems eager to wish me well far away from him.”

“Because he’s trying to be noble, Cas.”

“I don’t _want_ him to be noble,” Cas retorts, baffled, and Sam smiles slightly, Charlie snickering reluctantly behind him.

“Can I tell him that?”

Cas just looks at him. After all, what good will it do? This isn’t about what he wants.

It never has been.

Sam takes a breath.

“I think — you should wait here, for now. But — Charlie and I have a few days here, but after that, I want us to come visit you again. And I want Dean to come with us. I think, um. I think it’s important for him to see you — for you to see him — somewhere besides the castle.”

Cas doesn’t understand that, either. He liked seeing Dean at the castle, liked _being_ at the castle, by the end of it, and a part of him just wants to stow away in Sam and Charlie’s carriage and try to negotiate to stay there again.

“Okay,” he agrees reluctantly, at a loss, and both of them looked relieved.

Anna, of course, still stands in unhappy silence, but — Cas will have to deal with that later.

“Okay.” Sam hesitates. “Alright, I think — maybe we should call it a night, for now, let you, um, think about things, and we’ll come see you first thing tomorrow.”

Cas frowns.

“Where are you staying?”

“Not far,” Sam assures him. “Just at Bobby’s estate, since I’m not an omega or a woman.”

Charlie sighs.

“I tried to just get him put on a dress, but he said he was too tall for that to convince anyone.”

“He is the tallest person I’ve ever met,” Cas points out, and Sam lifts his brows at her.

She huffs.

“Hey, didn’t you read those prints they gave us at the rest stop a few hours ago? Stop stereotyping. You’re part of Winchester’s problem.”

“I’m not stereotyping! I’m just pointing out that I don’t look like a woman, and people are bound to notice.”

Anna perks up a little.

“You received the prints?”

Charlie blinks.

“Um, yes? Little info-thingies about how shitty we are? Which, I hate that that’s _news_ to anyone.”

Anna looks pleased.

“Exactly. Thank you. What did your companion think?”

Sam blinks, glancing around uncertainly.

“Um, if you mean me, I thought they were pretty neat.”

Anna reluctantly turns her gaze toward him.

“But would you say they were _effective_?”

“I mean — I think so? Most of it wasn’t really _new_ to me, but — I thought it was well-presented?”

She nods, expression shrewd.

“I see. Good.” She sniffs and, apparently satisfied, stands. “Alright. I’ll see you out. Cas should rest.”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“ _I_ should see them out, and _you_ should wait here.”

Her jaw tightens.

“I’m not sure—"

He stands, too, giving her an even look.

“I am.”

They stare each other down for a moment, and then she huffs.

“Fine. I’ll wait here.”

“I recall you as a twelve-year-old. For the record.”

Rather predictably, Anna rolls her eyes.

“Just go see your guests out, Cas.”

He hugs Sam and Charlie goodbye again, just to be safe — and if he clings a little too long, heedless of Anna waiting upstairs, he thinks he deserves at least that much — and when he’s finished, he grimly reascends the stairs.

Anna is sullenly sipping tea by the window when he makes it there. He takes the seat across from her, and they sit in silence for a minute.

“Three weeks,” he finally says, watching the curve of the river in the distance.

Anna tenses.

“No one asked him to do that.”

Cas resolutely looks forward, out the window.

“And yet he did. Which you might have been able to guess, had you been paying attention.”

“He was keeping you _prisoner,_ Cas! Forgive me if that act was at the forefront of my mind!”

“No,” he snaps, and in his peripheral, he sees her draw back.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she protests. “That was his decision, and you can’t blame me.”

“I absolutely can,” he seethes, finally looking at her. “If you had just let me stay where I was—"

“Then you’d be even _worse_ off,” she counters hotly. “You already think you’re in love with him!”

Cas presses his lips together, and she shakes her head.

“If I’d left you there, you’d probably have convinced yourself you _wanted_ to bear his children. You haven’t even been free two months, Cas. You’re nowhere near to being able to make a real decision about this.”

“It wasn’t your decision to make.”

“It wasn’t your decision to _be_ there in the first place! I set things _right_ . And I’m sorry if he spent three weeks suffering as a prisoner, but Cas — that’s how you’ve spent your _life._ And he denied you your freedom when — _obviously_ — he could have given it to you any time. So actually? I’m not sorry. He deserved that and more.”

“You know _nothing_ of him—"

“And neither do you!”

Cas stands.

“Get out,” he growls. “Go. I will not hear this.”

“You certainly won’t _listen,”_ she shoots back, getting to her feet as well. “I was ready for a fight. I’ve _been_ ready for a fight, for weeks. And not just me — _everyone here was. W_ e _expected_ it. And perhaps we won’t get one after all, but that — _that_ is who we’re really dealing with. Someone who will _crush_ you, with no regard for actual justice. This one good act changes nothing.”

He stares at her.

“You’re disappointed,” he finally says, taken aback. “You _wanted_ to fight.”

Her jaw tightens.

“I didn’t. That was the worst-case scenario.”

“It was. But you wanted it anyway.”

“I did _not,_ ” she insists.

“I don’t understand you.”

She opens her mouth, then shuts it.

Then she sighs.

“I really didn’t, Cas. But no — I wasn’t afraid of it, not the way I probably should have been.” She looks down. “I just — doesn’t a part of you wish you _could_ ? For the first time in my life, I _could_ fight, if it came to that. Everything before was just — it was just enduring. Doing what I was told so I wouldn’t make it worse for myself,” she adds, bitter. “When the councilman’s son did that to you — I was so _angry._ And then I saw what you did to him, and I — I think a part of me was jealous _._ I wanted to be able to lash out, to — to do some sort of damage in return. I know Father whipped you, I know that was — it was _awful,_ but we were so powerless, and for once, even briefly, you got to do something about it.”

Cas thinks about that, about the fear and the anger, when he retaliated, when he beat that man bloody. He even thinks about his pie, scattered across the floor, about shoving Dean back and wishing he could go even further, and he can’t deny that yes, he understands that.

“I paid,” he said quietly. “You always pay.”

“But you shouldn’t have to. You just gave him what he deserved. I just — I know you think you love Dean, Cas. But he was just more of the same. Maybe there was a more comfortable bed involved, but — he would have taken everything from you in the end, just like they would have. And for that — yes. A part of me did want to fight him.”

Cas takes a deep breath.

“I understand. I felt that way, when I first met him. I knew what he probably would have done to you, and I hated him for that.” He shakes his head. “But that is not who he is, and he doesn’t deserve your fight. He deserves to be given the chance to fight _alongside_ you. Which he has, insofar as he was able. And you should respect that.”

“Cas, I told you, one good deed—"

“And I told you to go. I’m going to spend the next few days with Sam and Charlie, while they’re here. I can’t be sure they’ll come back, and I certainly can’t be sure Dean ever will. So please — leave me be, until then.”

She looks torn.

“Anna.”

“Fine. Just — be careful with yourself, Cas.”

“I’m sure I can try,” he says dryly.

And then he pointedly gestures her out.

Cas doesn’t get much sleep. His anger with his sister fizzles, exhaustion taking its place, but he simply gathers Dean’s letter up off the floor and tucks himself into bed.

As painful as the words are, he can’t help but want to read them again.

Dean — Dean regards him well, at least. Is promising to _always_ think well of Cas, even if it’s with the expectation that they never meet again. And n ow that Sam’s promised to try and persuade Dean to come here, has assured Cas Dean _does_ want him at the castle . . . the rest of it hurts a little bit less.

Still. It makes it difficult to sleep, and when he stirs awake after only a few hours, unable to fall back asleep, he decides to head down to the kitchen and prepare some sort of breakfast for Sam and Charlie when they arrive.

They can _say_ they’ll visit again, but Cas might as well try and make their stay as pleasant as he can.

Anyway, several women are already down there working, and they give Cas curious looks when they see what he’s doing.

“That’s not for the prince and his friend, is it?” Lucy finally asks, coming to stand next to him and look at his rising dough with dismay.

“Why wouldn’t it be? They came all this way to visit me.”

“But—" she bites her lip. “They were part of it.”

He grimaces.

“They really weren’t. They’re my friends.”

“That prince is your _friend_?” she protests, incredulous. “How could he let them make you take the Drive like that, then? Maybe that cute red-haired girl couldn’t do anything, but a _prince_?” She shakes her head. “Just — they were so _cruel_ to you, it makes me sick. A _dress,_ of all things.”

Cas tenses.

“Indeed,” he mutters, because this is nothing new, for him. He’s lost count of all the people who’ve told him how _terrible_ it is, what happened to him in the capital — some of them more than once.

And the _Drive —_ Cas thinks he’d sacrifice literal years off his lifespan if it meant he never, ever had to hear someone comment on the Drive again. Mysteriously, that seems to be the pinnacle of his abuse; being deliberately shamed and humiliated, dressed like a little girl’s doll and paraded through the streets to be mocked —

What on _earth_ could be worse?

“I’d be careful, Castiel,” she continues on, oblivious — as they all are. “None of that was right. I’m not sure I’d trust anybody who could stand by and watch it.”

“Perhaps.”

She nods to herself, sad.

“Of course, we’ve all been there.” She sighs. “Well, let me know if you need a hand, anyhow. I’ll gladly lend it.”

And this — this is the _worst_ part of all of it.

Every last one of them — they mean well, and Cas, despite his bitterness and frustration, can’t help but respond to that.

“Thank you, Lucy,” he manages. “I appreciate that.”

And he does. Here at Mills Park — no one is a stranger to suffering, and the empathy and support they all manage to offer despite their own tragedies is incredible.

The problem is, no one seems to understand what Cas’s tragedy really is.

Charlie makes them all sit on a blanket outside so she can perch halfway on him, and though it makes eating very difficult, her bright, lemondrop scent is reassuringly familiar. He’s missed it, and he’s grateful for the contact.

She doesn’t quite smell like _home,_ but he thinks she smells like a part of it, and he sees no reason not to allow himself that comfort.

“Can I tell him about the nightgown?”

“No,” Sam says sternly, and Charlie pouts.

“What nightgown?” Cas asks, instantly curious.

“Well—"

“Charlie.”

They exchange looks, the sort that almost certainly mean Cas is about to be lied to.

He sighs.

“Dean has a new nightgown. Kind of,” she finally explains, and Sam rolls his eyes. “And oh, _boy._ He is like, _super_ attached to it.”

“They are rather comfortable,” Cas agrees. “Dean can, occasionally, be persuaded to reason.”

Sam snorts.

“Occasionally,” he mutters, and Charlie smirks.

“You should have seen him, is all I’m saying.”

Cas looks down.

“I wish I could have.”

There’s an awkward sort of silence.

“Well, I think — I’m pretty sure we can get him to come with us next time.”

“Alright. But — when will that be?”

Sam hesitates.

“As soon as I can manage? Hopefully within a couple weeks.”

Cas blinks.

He assumed it might be _months._

“And . . . you really think Dean will come.”

“Yeah.”

Charlie coughs.

“But maybe I should ask someone how _exactly_ your sister had you kidnapped, just in case.”

Cas frowns.

“Don’t — if he doesn’t want to come, don’t make him.” He shakes his head. “I want to see him. Very badly. But not at that price.”

She sobers.

“Of course, Cas.” She leans against him slightly. “I was just teasing.”

“Alright.”

He hopes Dean _will_ want to. He hopes he didn’t really mean to say goodbye, with his letter.

Or at least — now that he knows _Cas_ hasn’t said goodbye yet, he’ll come and let him.

“He will,” Charlie promises, giving his arm a squeeze. “Just wait.”

He smiles slightly at that.

“Well, I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

For some reason, Sam and Charlie don’t laugh.

Cas feels better than he has in days with Sam and Charlie there, waiting when he’s finished with work, ready to sit with him on the terrace at Mills Park or walk through town with him, Cas grudgingly showing them all the places Samandriel or Anna have cajoled him into going — but of course, that just means their departure comes far too soon.

“And . . . you said — two weeks.”

“We’ll try and make it sooner,” Sam promises, eyes a little shiny. “It — it was really good seeing you, Cas. We missed you a lot. Dean did, too.”

Cas will believe that when he hears it from Dean himself.

Still — as much as he misses _Dean_ , he misses _all_ of them, and knowing they’ll be driving away without him makes his chest feel tight.

_They’re coming back,_ he reminds himself.

And though there’s no guarantee — they intend to bring Dean.

Cas can be patient.

“Thank you for visiting me. I missed you very much, as well.” He takes a deep breath. “Please tell Dean I missed him, too.”

“Of course, Cas.”

“And . . . make sure he knows that I haven’t. Said goodbye to him, that is. Even if I must do so eventually.”

Sam nods.

“I will, Cas.”

“Thank you.” He hesitates, then awkwardly holds out his arms. “Uh. Hugs? If you don’t mind.”

Sam laughs.

Then he engulfs him in a bear hug, and a few moments later, Charlie wriggles up in between them, squeezing them both.

Cas just shuts his eyes and smiles, and tries to memorize the feeling.

Within an hour of their departure, Samandriel appears.

He starts by telling Cas how beautiful he looks — a disturbing, recent addition to their greeting ritual, though Cas isn’t quite sure what brought it on — and then apologizes for his absence, glancing skittishly about all the while.

“Anna said you had guests, and that you — you wouldn’t like to be interrupted.”

Cas nods slowly.

“Anna was right.”

Samandriel clasps his hands together.

“Did you have a nice time?”

“Yes? They’re very good friends of mine. I was happy to see them.”

For some reason, the boy looks torn.

“That’s good. I’m glad.” He hesitates. “And they — they were always kind to you? Before?”

Cas raises a brow.

“I can’t imagine we’d be friends if they weren’t.”

“Well — I know — sometimes, when one’s circumstances are bad enough, even the occasional kindness can seem — well, it means a lot.”

Ah. Cas sits back, satisfied that he knows where this is going.

“You don’t need to worry, Samandriel,” he says gently, lifting his coffee cup and pausing before he takes a sip. “After all, Sam stopped using me for target practice after the first few _months_.”

The color drains out of Samandriel’s face.

“He did _what_?” He leaps out of his chair, fists clenched. “That — I should demand—"

“I’m making a joke,” Cas interjects mildly. “No one ever used me for target practice.”

Still, Samandriel doesn’t sit down.

“You don’t need to censor yourself for me, Castiel. I can tell sometimes you think I’m still a child, but I’m a man, and if you can endure the memory of your suffering, I should be able to endure hearing about it. I should be able to support you, to be someone you can lean on—"

Cas bites back a sigh. He appreciates Samandriel’s kindness, and he _does_ appreciate the company, even if he’d like about a third as much of it as he gets, and — if he’s being entirely honest — he appreciates having something relatively minor to be annoyed about, instead of being left alone to stew over things that are more than just a nuisance; nevertheless , he _was_ making a joke, and not for the first time, he wishes Samandriel could set aside his concern for Cas’s feelings enough to remember his own sense of humor.

“Yes, and I’m grateful to you for that, but it’s not necessary.”

Samandriel’s lower lip pushes out, just slightly, and Cas thinks it’s no wonder the entire house treats him much the same as it does the ten-year-old messenger boys who flit in and out of the kitchens.

“We _all_ need someone to lean on.”

“That’s true. But — not right now, we don’t. Or I don’t.”

“Oh. If — if you’re sure.”

“Yes. Please sit back down.”

After an uncertain pause, he does.

“So . . . so they really were — good, to you?”

“Very. They snuck in to have snacks and talk about books with me, even though I wasn’t supposed to see anyone but Dean.”

Samandriel perks up.

“Oh. They _do_ sound nice. I just — I had misunderstood from your sister that they did everything short of try to kidnap you back.”

“If only,” Cas mutters, and Samandriel blinks, turning his head and leaning forward.

“What? I didn’t catch that.”

“I said ‘don’t worry,’” Cas assures him. “Anyway, they’ve left, now. Though they’ve promised to visit again.”

Cas decides no one needs to know Dean might be coming, too. Samandriel is unfortunately impressionable and highly susceptible to Older Sister Wisdom, and he believes _everything_ Anna tells him.

Doubtless, he’ll have another impassioned fit of justice on Cas’s behalf.

“Ah.” Samandriel studies the ground for a long moment, pensive, before his expression clears. “Well, if they were true friends to you — then I’m happy for you, Castiel. You deserve to have all the friends in the world, and time to spend with them.”

Cas thinks back to Dean’s letter, to being told he deserved _everything_ he wanted.

Cas doesn’t want to ‘deserve’ things.

He wants to _have_ them, whether he deserves them or not.

“Thank you. I’m looking forward to it.” And then, since Samandriel has, in his own way, been rather good to Cas, too — “You can meet them next time, if you’d like.”

Samandriel lights up.

“I can? I’d love to. Thank you, Castiel.” He looks down at his lap, color in his cheeks. “I — to be honest, I was a little worried you’d change your mind.”

“About . . . what?”

Samandriel swallows.

“About _me,_ ” he clarifies, and Cas frowns.

“I don’t know why having other friends would make a difference,” he protests. Especially since Sam and Charlie can’t even be permanent fixtures.

Anyway, like Anna said — you need more than just one person, and Cas likes to think the bulk of Samandriel’s energy and enthusiasm is just an unfortunate product of his youth.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Samandriel says, then looks up, eyes bright. “I was thinking — maybe we could go walk through town, today? The bakery has a new rose flavored cake. Maybe — maybe you’d like to try it?”

Cas mulls this over for a moment. He’s in good spirits, after Sam and Charlie’s visit, and as resistant as he’s been to Anna and Samandriel’s outings, he _is_ getting used to the crowds.

(Not that he’s about to admit it to Anna.)

“Why not?” he finally agrees. “I like roses.”

Samandriel perks up.

“Do you? There’s a famous rose garden near the Southern border, actually. We could make a trip of it, someday. Anna, too,” he adds quickly,

“Perhaps,” Cas says, although going about town is already exhausting. He’s not sure he could handle any sort of lengthy expedition. “But — for now, I think a rose cake is adventure enough.”

Samandriel laughs, delighted.

“Isn’t it? I’ll hurry and finish my coffee, then.”

He brings his cup to his lips, a happy smile on his face.

Cas suppresses a sigh.

Sometimes he wishes _he’d_ ever been young like that.

When Sam and Charlie first left, Dean thought the five-day wait for them to go and come back would be the worst of it.

He was naive.

The worst of it, as it turns out, is having to sit and feign patience while Sam and Charlie both insist on taking baths, freshening up, and then, once they’ve finally body-buffed themselves and done their hair or whatever the hell takes a full fucking hour, ordering dinner.

And while they wait for it to show up?

“. . . completely agree, the section by Mills Park is _beautiful._ Like, wow! It’s straight out of a painting.”

“It was _amazing,_ I think I wouldn’t mind _having_ a painting of it. Watching the sun set that last night was just incredible, the way the water looked—"

“For fuck’s sake,” Dean finally bursts out, desperate. “You went to see _Cas,_ not take the goddamn river tour! How the hell is he doing?”

Charlie smiles, slow and terrible, and leans back in her chair.

She takes a long, drawn-out sip of tea, and across from her, Sam does the same, his own expression mild and contemplative.

Dean may actually be in hell.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Sam shrugs, gingerly setting his cup down.

“Sorry. It’s just — you kept saying how he’d said goodbye, and he’d gotten closure, so we kind of assumed your letter was you doing the same.”

Dean gapes.

“I told you to make sure he was doing okay!”

“He is,” Charlie says cheerfully. “We did.”

“Then why the fuck didn’t you _say_ so?”

She blinks, cocking her head.

“Maybe because you didn’t _ask_?”

“Because I thought you’d tell me?”

She hums.

“Yup, I see the problem.”

“The hell does that even mean?”

They look at each for a moment, some significant twitching of the brows passing between them.

Dean grits his teeth.

“I swear to God—"

“You made him cry.”

Dean stops short, something cold snaking its way down his spine.

“I — what?”

Sam folds his arms, studying him.

“You made him cry,” he repeats. “Your letter.”

“I — but — how? I — I thought I said all the stuff that I was supposed to.”

“Right, but what about the stuff he actually wanted to _hear_?”

“Wasn’t that _it_?”

“I didn’t read it, but—"

“I did,” Charlie interrupts cheerfully.

“ _What_? I specifically told you _not_ to—"

“Cas let me! And it’s his now. So there!”

“But you—"

“ _Anyway_ ,” Sam continues firmly. “He cried because he thought you planned on never seeing him again.”

Dean shuts his mouth.

He blinks.

“I — well — well, yeah? I mean, I didn’t think he’d cry, but—"

“Of course he’d cry. _You_ cried.”

“Yeah, but I — you know.” Dean lifts a hand weakly, still trying to wrap his head around it, around Cas crying — in front of other people, no less — and somehow it just makes him think of a little boy on a dock, feeling like he was killing things and taking them apart, except the person who was supposed to be taking care of him not only didn’t bother trying to explain it in a way that would at least help him cope, but got _mad_ at him.

He frowns.

“Maybe I should have said more about why he shouldn’t like me and it’s best if I _don’t_ see h—"

Charlie smacks his shoulder.

“ _Dude!_ ”

“I’m just saying, if he cried, it’s probably ‘cause—"

“Because he misses you and he knows you’re enough of an idiot to actually stay away,” she grumbles. “You big _poop._ ”

Dean stares, offended.

“I’m not—"

“You are a poop,” Sam interjects quickly. “But that’s beside the point. The point is, even if you think you guys can’t be together . . .”

Dean waits, but Sam just lets the words hover in the air for a long, dramatic moment.

“Sam,” he finally prompts, terse, and Sam takes a deep, unbearably satisfied breath.

“He asked to at least be able to say goodbye.”

Dean just looks at him.

“Uh, he already did.”

“Did he?” Sam counters, quirking a brow, and Dean’s pretty sure he’s never wanted to punch his little brother so badly in his _life. “_ _Or,_ did Anna have him drugged and smuggled out of the castle _against his will_?”

Dean stares.

“ _Excuse_ me? Are you saying he—"

“Didn’t know he’d be leaving?” Sam finishes smugly. “Yep.”

“So he—"

“Definitely wasn’t trying to leave _you_? Yep.”

“Wait, but that means—"

“He kissed you just because he wanted to?”

Dean flushes.

“I — I mean — but — I still shouldn’t—"

“Of course, he _wanted_ to come back with us, but his sister was worried what would happen, so we told him we’d bring _you_ to _him._ But if you’re really not going to go . . .”

“Well, of _course_ I’m going to go!” Dean snaps, standing. “I — I’ve gotta make sure he’s okay! His sister _drugged_ him!”

“Like, a month and a half ago,” Charlie says, squinting at him. “We’re pretty sure he’s fine.”

Dean hesitates, and then he squares his shoulders.

“Well, how do you _know_? Hell, Sam hasn’t even done his army medical training! Who knows what she used on him? I somehow doubt she became a _doctor_ in the last six months; she could have fucked it up, and neither one of you probably would have been able to tell.” He can’t believe they didn’t give him a thorough checkup. It sounds like they showed up and had a fucking _conversation,_ when clearly what Cas needed was _medical_ attention.

They both just stare at him for a moment.

“You know what?” Sam finally says, sounding tired. “You’re right. You better go make sure he doesn’t have brain damage. You know, since you’re the most qualified.”

Dean quickly nods.

“I am. I should.” He takes a deep breath. “I will. But first — tell me more about that stupid river.”

“I see.”

John studies him for a long, long moment.

“And . . . you found their stories about the river tour so thrilling, you wanna go do the exact same one.”

Dean swallows, nodding meekly.

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“And you want to leave as soon as possible.”

“Uh. Yes, your Majesty.”

“But you’re not in any hurry.”

Dean clears his throat.

“Well. I — I’ve been feeling a little antsy, you know, after the dungeon, and just kind of being stuck on the castle grounds, after that. Might be good to — get out? But I don’t have to. But — I’d like to.”

“Get out,” John repeats, thoughtful. “Onto a boat in the middle of a river for three days.”

Dean blinks.

“Uh. Yes?”

John just looks at him again, utterly inscrutable, before he finally inclines his head.

“Finish interviewing the enforcer candidates, and then you may go.”

Dean blinks, a little surprised.

“Really?”

His father tilts his head.

“Is there a reason why I should say no?”

“No,” Dean says. “No, your Majesty. Just — uh. The dungeons were supposed to be a punishment, so — so I’d understand if you thought, you know, a _river_ tour wasn’t—"

John turns his head suddenly, coughing into his sleeve.

“Go, Dean,” he says once he’s finished, bored, and even though Dean feels like there was something kind of weird about that cough, he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Yes, your Majesty. Thank you. I’ll just — finish up those interviews, then.”

“You do that, son.”

He’s going to go interview the _crap_ out of these bastards, and then –

Then he’s going to go make sure Cas doesn’t have brain damage.

“. . . and the fact that we still _do_ this is evidence of the bigger picture, of the inequality still overwhelmingly present in Winchester, of the attitudes that brought us there. It’s horrible, and it says so much about how women and omegas are still viewed , no matter what progress has been made or how the capital likes to dress it up. But we are not the capital. We are not the King’s council. We, like so much of Winchester, live the reality — and we are ready for _change.”_

_And we need to show them that,_ Cas thinks to himself, waiting for it, and tries not to look too obviously like he’d rather go read in bed.

His sister’s cause is noble, if most likely doomed to fail, and he can drag himself downstairs to look tragic while she speaks at least a couple of times a week, even if he doesn’t understand how it could possibly help.

_“_ And we need to _show_ them that,” she continues, and it occurs to him that perhaps her true goal is for _him_ to be able to deliver this speech. He’s certainly on his way to having it memorized. “We need to show them that we don’t want to be mighty, we want to be just, and we want justice for ourselves. We want our kingdom to thrive, and we can’t do it like this. We can’t do it when they’re pushing half of us under, to the point we can’t even contribute in meaningful ways. We can’t do it when they’re keeping our neighbors out, when they’re sending out a constant threat instead of offering their hand. They have their outposts at the border, soldiers who’ve trained for years armed to the teeth and ready to patrol, to protect us from from those neighbors, to _fight —_ but we don’t want them to fight. We want to know we have nothing to fear from across our borders, anymore than half of us should have to fear within our walls. The people of Winchester see that, they see the New Eden tradition, they see the soldiers at the border, a reminder to the rest of the continent — and they follow that example.”

For some, Cas thinks. For most, though, he can’t help but think they’re all just doing what’s easiest. New Eden liked to pretend there was some sort of rhyme or reason, too, some underlying justification for their complaisance — but in the end, it was just cowardice and apathy.

He’s not sure most people will care enough to make any changes, not if it takes any real effort.

Then again — the parlor _is_ full of people. Perhaps he isn’t giving his sister enough credit.

“But this dynamic of dominance and aggression needs to _stop._ Winchester is the most powerful kingdom on the continent, but it could be even better. It needs queens, not captives. It needs to reach _out_ to other kingdoms, to establish mutual benefit, not remind them we’ll use what we have against them. And if it can’t? It should be _fighting_ for people in other places, not trying to show them who’s boss. It _needs_ —"

Lucy bursts into the parlor, then, a newsprint clutched to her chest, brown eyes wide, and Anna cuts off, head whipping toward the door in surprise.

“Anna! The papers — King John’s issued a proclamation!” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “The New Eden tradition — they’re getting rid of it!”

There’s several gasps, and Anna’s jaw drops.

“ _What_?”

Lucy beams back at her.

“You’ve done it! You and your brother, all of us — we’ve done it! They said it’s outdated, and unjust, and they’ll fix that town some other way. Anna — they’re never going to hurt another omega again!”

Anna swallows, clearly flabbergasted.

“I — but — what about their heirs? If it’s not someone from New Eden, then won’t that just mean—"

“Well, that’s just it,” Lucy interrupts proudly, waving the paper in glee. “They issued a second proclamation, right alongside the first.”

“And?”

“And Winchester _is_ after its heirs, alright — but they’re looking for a noblewoman to _volunteer!_ ”

Cas sits perfectly still, struggling to process all of this.

It sounds like what almost happened to him, to Anna, what _did_ happen to countless omegas before them, will never happen to anyone else, not ever again. It sounds like the capital wants to go even further, to ‘fix that town,’ presumably to stop what has _always_ been happening to innocent people in it.

It’s difficult to believe, but if it’s true . . .

It’s a miracle.

And Cas —

Cas thinks he might be sick.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: more one-sided Samandriel/Cas, references to sexism, minor suggestions of violence (no actual violence, just proposed stabbing), please let me know if I forgot anything.

“I don’t trust it,” Anna mutters, curled up on the other side of the bed, a frown on her face. “’Volunteer,’ they say. What does that mean?”

“I’m sure the details are in the proclamation.”

Cas declined to have a copy, despite the expectant looks of the parlor crowd. Curious satisfaction is certainly better than knowing pity, but since Cas himself isn’t particularly satisfied by the news, he’d rather people finally stop looking at him altogether.

No, right now, Cas just wants to go to sleep.

“Yes, they are. There will be benefits. Compensation.” Her mouth tightens. “For the _family._ How can she volunteer if there’s incentives for a family that effectively _owns_ her? I’m not sure this is any kind of solution.”

Cas looks at her.

“What other solution would there be?” he asks, and he’s genuinely curious, though he’s not sure that _any_ solution to the problem of Dean’s heirs will seem more palatable.

He wishes he could go back to forgetting such a problem still existed.

“Cas. Haven’t you been listening? A _queen.”_

“A queen,” he repeats, struggling to wrap his mind around it.

Unfortunately, Anna is happy to assist.

“A queen. One who actually helps raise her children, who brings her own perspective and sense of diplomacy to the table. It’s the best thing for the kingdom. Raising the future rulers of Winchester in the very same mold as the ones of present — _that’s_ a recipe for stagnation, if you ask me.” She huffs. “ _Volunteer._ There’s no such thing. I respect the effort, if that’s really what it is, but — they’re missing the whole point.”

Cas doesn’t see why Dean needs to have any heirs at all, personally, but he’s not sure how to explain that to anyone, and there’s no point in voicing the opinion until he figures it out.

“And teachers!” she continues with a huff. “To teach _what_? What do they intend to teach, that’s somehow going to fix things? We’re looking at what _New Eden_ does to their girls and omegas, but what about the rest of Winchester? Maybe they don’t starve them or poison them or push them off of cliffs, but they use them, and then they silence them, because that’s the role they play. That they’ve _always_ played. If we’re talking about an educational overhaul, then why leave the rest of Winchester out of it?”

Cas, still preoccupied with trying to muster the logic behind _his_ argument, really has nothing to offer her.

Fortunately, Anna doesn’t seem to be looking for a response.

“I think — I need to rethink this. We were supposed to shame the capital, which is harder to do, in light of this, but — maybe it’s better this way. The capital’s example is the one the people follow, right? So . . . if even _they_ acknowledge a need for change — maybe we can push for more.”

Cas suppresses a sigh. His head is full enough of his own thoughts, without Anna thinking out loud about things that still don’t make perfect sense to him.

“I’m tired,” he murmurs, since no more seems immediately forthcoming. “May we talk about it tomorrow?”

Anna doesn’t answer for a moment, eyes sliding toward him, contemplative.

“Of course,” she says, then sits up. “Get some rest.”

“Thank you.”

She stands with a yawn, stretching a little, and then turns back, leaning forward to kiss his forehead.

“But this is good news, Cas,” she tells him, quiet and intent. “This is a win.”

It doesn’t feel like it. In fact, it feels like a terrible loss, one more in a long line of them, and all Cas wants to do is shut his eyes and forget reality entirely until he’s forced to wake again.

“Congratulations,” he offers, and though her lips briefly twitch upward, her eyes are sad.

“To you, too,” she counters softly, briefly reaching out to touch his cheek. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but — it will, Cas. I promise.”

Cas, for his part, thinks people promise him things much too freely, especially since so many of those things are dependent on his own feelings — feelings which tend to be ignored — but he graciously nods.

“Good night, Anna.”

She studies him for a moment, then nods back.

“Good night, Cas.”

And then, at last, she leaves him to his peace.

Samandriel doesn’t even bother greeting him, the next morning; he simply grins at Cas, eyes shining with joy, and throws his arms around him.

“I heard the news, Castiel. This is so _wonderful._ ”

Cas woodenly pats his back.

“Indeed,” he mutters. The sick feeling from last night has lessened somewhat, but it still hasn’t gone away, and every time he thinks of the proclamations, it just gets worse again.

He’s being unreasonable, he knows.

He can’t help himself.

Eventually, Samandriel releases him.

“Of course, that’s not the end of it,” he acknowledges, sobering a little. Numbly, Cas takes a seat at the table on the terrace, reaching for the coffeepot.

“No. I suppose not.”

They’ll need to settle on a volunteer, after all. Cas tries not to wonder what that volunteer will look like, if the children will have Dean’s freckles, his eyes, or if they’ll favor their mother.

If Dean is going to feel sorry and give her extra kisses when it comes time to make them, because he’s very kind like that.

Of course, Dean proved reticent with Cas, even if the circumstances were slightly different. Perhaps the noblewoman will stay at the castle for a time, too, and Dean will insist on letting her adjust. Maybe he’ll even take her riding, or eat dinner with her every night. Maybe he’ll ask her what it is she likes to do, and he’ll find a space for her leisure, furnishing her with all the supplies her heart desires.

Maybe she’ll even be like Lady Mary, and Dean will end up delivering an ultimatum to his council, offering her everything he has, offering to give it all up if that is what it would take to have _her_ , instead.

And maybe they’ll even _let_ him, and maybe the pair of them will live happily ever after, without anyone getting banished anywhere, a castle full of children and dinners full of conversation and nights full of all the kisses from Dean anyone could think to desire.

Cas tries and fails to make himself pick up his cup. His arms don’t seem to want to work.

“The benefits are very generous — I understand they always were, before — so I’m sure finding a volunteer won’t be a problem,” Samandriel continues, gaze thoughtful as he stirs cream into his coffee. “But do they really _want_ a volunteer?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Cas murmurs, finally securing the handle in his grasp. Coffee will make him feel better. Coffee _always_ makes him feel better.

None of this should be making him feel so badly, in the first place.

“Well, I’ve yet to hear anyone who _wants_ that.”

Cas frowns.

“I thought most of Sioux Falls condemned the New Eden tradition.”

“Of course they do, but — that’s not the only option, is it?”

Dread pools in his stomach.

“A queen,” he mumbles, and then forces the cup to his mouth, looking away.

“Exactly! We’ve got a third of the army lining the Eastern border, it feels like, and so have they, but we’re not even really hostile with each other, we’re both just worried we _will_ be. There’s no reason not to form some sort of alliance with them — Billie says economically, it would give both kingdoms every advantage — and marriage is one of the best ways to do it. Everyone’s saying so.”

Cas immediately lowers his mug.

“Marriage.”

“Yes! Princess Isabela’s hardly older than Dean, and by all accounts, she’s brilliantly educated, and beautiful, too, though they say she’s always traveling.” Samandriel pauses, then smiles. “Of course, she couldn’t possibly be as beautiful as you.”

Which would be very helpful, were such a thing both true and the deciding factor in who would get to marry Dean, but since it is not, Cas is hard-pressed to appreciate the compliment.

“Thank you,” he mutters. “I thought Winchester didn’t have queens. Will the council really agree to that?”

“Well, why not? We had Queen Mary, and she was wonderful, God rest her. The people _liked_ having a queen, and Winchester could stand to make more friends. I think we’ll get much more out of an alliance than paying off a volunteer.”

The idea makes quite a bit of sense, certainly.

Cas utterly despises it, anyway.

“I see. Well. I’m sure I wish them luck.” He doesn’t, not at all. He hopes Kate talks, openly and ruthlessly, and rumors of Dean’s volatile paranoia spread far and wide until every noblewoman and princess on the continent dismisses him out of hand.

In fact, he hopes _no one_ will want anywhere near Dean, for fear of thrown pies and endless caustic insinuations about their supposedly malicious intentions, and King John becomes so angry he forces Dean to live in exile in Sioux Falls on Bobby’s estate with nothing to occupy him but visiting nearby acquaintances.

“Castiel?”

“What?” he snaps, then winces when he sees Samandriel’s face fall. “I’m sorry. Anna kept me up discussing the proclamations. I’ll feel much better after my coffee.”

“Oh.” Samandriel frowns. “She shouldn’t have done that. Of course we’re all excited, but — you need your rest. You have work.”

“Not until tomorrow.”

“But you work so _hard._ You need all the rest you can get,” he insists, firm, and shakes his head. “Older sisters. They always think they know _best._ ” He hesitates. “Which — I suppose they usually do, but — but _sometimes,_ they don’t, not at _all_.”

Personally, Cas is starting to think that’s the case more than just _sometimes,_ but Samandriel tends to get distraught when Cas starts being grumpy about things, so he generally tries to hold his tongue.

“Yes, well. Younger brothers must be patient, I suppose.”

Samandriel’s expression relaxes, light returning to his eyes.

“We must, mustn’t we?” he laughs. “Still. Next time, remind her of what you do. All that heavy lifting — I don’t think _I_ could do it, even. It must exhaust you.”

Cas tries not to look too hard at Samandriel’s fine, slender arms. He’s a graceful, well-shaped young man, and no one ought to find him lacking, not unless they have a particular fondness for broad shoulders and arms that have spent many, many years expertly wielding swords and other such weaponry.

(Not that Cas ever got a chance to see it happen.)

“It really doesn’t,” he assures him. “It’s satisfying work, and I’ve been told I’m rather strong.”

Samandriel lights up.

“The strongest. The way you lifted that _carriage_ —" Samandriel sighs. “You’re just — you’re _incredible_ , Castiel.”

“I’m not,” Cas says. “Physical strength is hardly a great virtue.”

“But it’s _more_ than that. It’s not just how strong you are, it — it’s what you _do_ with it. You’re so _good._ You helped Charlotte, and even though you were so sad when you got here, you’re always patient with your sister, and you shared your story, and you talk to people and answer their questions and you’re working so hard to help Mills Park and the cause and I just — I admire you so much, Castiel, I couldn’t even begin to express it. You’re such an inspiration, and not just to me, to — to everyone who meets you, I would think.”

They’re very nice things to say, Cas thinks. Unfortunately, Cas doesn’t _want_ to be an inspiration, nor does he think he _should_ be one. He’s ‘fucked up’ his life completely, as Dean would say — at least where someone else didn’t fuck it up for him already — and if he does all the things Samandriel says, he certainly doesn’t do them for the right reasons.

He does them because he doesn’t really see a _choice._

“I mean it,” Samandriel continues earnestly. “You’re amazing, Cas. You are. And — and I look forward to the day that you let me ease some of those burdens for you, because you deserve to have someone do for you what you do for so many others.”

Cas looks at him, blue eyes bright and earnest, expression soft, and he can’t help it. He feels _tired_ . He’s tired of the world and he’s tired of Anna using him as some sort of symbol and he’s tired of people looking at him like some kind of victim and he’s tired of _Samandriel_. The boy is sweet and helpful, devoted and undeniably enduring, but he’s unbearably young and energetic when Cas just feels ancient and all he wants to do is lie in bed and read his novels until the world has disappeared around him.

“You know,” Cas eventually says, studying Samandriel’s sweet, unlined face. “I could have.”

Samandriel blinks.

“Could have . . . what?”

“Killed him,” Cas clarifies, frowning. “Almost any time I wanted, I think.”

After a beat, Samandriel goes a little pale, withdrawing slightly.

“But . . . you never would have. Or — or even if you did — I think — under the circumstances—"

Cas shrugs.

“I think I thought about it once. I’d made him a pie — it took me forever to get it right, but I was sick of fighting with him, so I thought it would be worth it — and he just . . . destroyed it. For a moment, I think — I think I almost wanted to. Maybe even did. And I could have.”

Samandriel opens his mouth, then shuts it, apparently speechless.

“He was _terrified_ of me,” Cas continues, thinking back, a little awed. “And — he was probably right to be. I kept thinking he shouldn’t be, that I would never, but that’s not really the point, is it? He left me plenty of opportunities, and had I wanted to — I could have. Easily.”

Cas can’t help himself. He looks at the shock, the unease in Samandriel’s face, and he suddenly wants to go back inside and tell every soul he can find the same.

Cas wasn’t helpless, not entirely, and he isn’t a symbol. If he is, he’s a poor excuse for one. He was taken from his home, and even if he doesn’t think _Dean_ would have gone through with it, an entire kingdom’s government had every intention of using and discarding him without a second thought, and Dean was their chosen means of doing so.

And yet — even though Cas _did_ have every opportunity, murdering Dean was the furthest thing from his mind.

No, Cas is a _coward,_ one who generally just accepts his lot in life, and the one time he wanted something more, something for _himself,_ he didn’t even get a chance to try and get it.

What he really is is _bitter,_ and he thinks he wants to be bitter in peace.

“Well—" Samandriel starts, oblivious. “Well, it — that — maybe that’s fair, but — surely you’re glad you didn’t?”

Cas huffs a laugh.

“Of course I’m glad. I think–“ He blinks, surprised himself. “I think — if he died, I might die, too.”

There’s stunned silence across from him, Samandriel staring with wide eyes, and after a moment, Cas nods.

He pushes his chair back, and Samandriel’s shocked gaze follows him as he stands, the rest of the boy still frozen.

“You were correct that I needed rest. Good day, Samandriel. Thank you for visiting.”

Without waiting for a response, he heads inside the house, up the stairs, and straight back to bed.

His peace doesn’t last, of course.

Anna follows him up after dinner, apparently determined to pace holes into the floorboards over the course of the evening, and since she spent most of the meal saving him from prying questions and conversation in general, he feels too beholden to send her away.

“I spent all day in the library, trying to find the records, but the last time they did this was _centuries_ ago. And regardless, I think someone needs to demand better answers. ‘Volunteer’ is too ambiguous. You can’t propose a person make a decision about themselves if you don’t award them full ownership and autonomy over that self to begin with. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s the families who will decide, just like in New Eden and it — it’s not right.”

“It isn’t,” he agrees. “They shouldn’t accept a volunteer.”

Anna looks relieved.

“Right? That’s wrong. But it’s already a concession, in their eyes, so — how do we convince them of that?”

“I’m not sure. You may not need to, of course. Samandriel tells me the people want a marriage alliance with some Eastern kingdom or other,” he points out, not bothering to try and hide his bitterness.

His sister freezes.

“With what Eastern kingdom?” she asks, oddly strained.

“The one we share a very large border with,” Cas informs her tiredly, though he supposes it’s a nice novelty, knowing something she doesn’t, for once. Probably because she was in the library all day, but — still. “A Princess Isabela, if I recall.”

Anna swallows, blinking rapidly.

“Oh. Of course. I suppose . . . that would be the ideal solution. I should have thought of that.”

Cas tilts his head.

“You did want a queen.”

Anna hesitates.

“I did, didn’t I?” She nods, straightening a little. “I do. That’s — an excellent proposal. Obviously. The real question is, how to go about making it?”

“I have no idea,” he mumbles, though really, he hasn’t thought about it and he’s not going to. While he might be willing to try and aid Anna’s efforts to prevent a volunteer being selected, he hates the idea of Princess Isabela just as much, and he refuses to do anything to serve it.

Though really, he hates _all_ of it. He vastly preferred the period of limbo, where he was gone and he trusted that Dean wouldn’t accept another New Eden omega and the circumstances of future heirs were still a great, irrelevant unknown.

Because if it’s going to be a noblewoman, one who might just turn out to be Dean’s very own Lady Mary — if it’s going to be Princess Isabela, to share all his days and nights in addition to his children, for the rest of her life – then . . .

“I wish I’d let him bed me,” Cas mumbles, slumping into his pillows, and Anna’s pacing stops.

“I — sorry?”

“Dean. The last night. He kissed me. I wish he’d stayed. I wish he’d bedded me.” He _does_ wish Dean had bedded him, whether it meant more kisses or not, and he wishes there had been a miracle and that — “I wish that right now, I—"

“No,” Anna interrupts, pale. “You don’t mean that. You can’t mean that.”

Cas swallows, vision blurring.

“But I do,” he insists, and he’s only just now realizing that it’s _true,_ that if it’s going to be like this, if he’s going to lose Dean so thoroughly, so _permanently,_ he wishes there was some part he could keep back for himself.

How could he have failed to see? If he was going to end up here, forgotten and abandoned anyway, then he had nothing to fear from the bedding. Nothing anyone would bother trying to take away, just something he could treasure forever, even if he couldn’t have everything else he wanted.

“You _don’t,_ ” Anna insists, a little frantic. “That — Cas, that would be awful. _All_ your options would diminish, you’d have an entire other person to worry about, the King might even try to take them away—"

“Only if he found out—"

“Whether he did or not, you don’t want that!” she snaps. “You aren’t in love with him, Cas. And even if you were, children aren’t for remembering people by. They’re human beings, not — not _symbols._ ”

Cas just looks at her.

“So am I.”

For a moment, she says nothing.

Then she sighs, shoulders slumping.

“Yes. You are. But you haven’t been treated like one, and it means — it means you don’t know what you want. You deserve a chance to figure it out, but that takes _time._ And you need more of it. You — you’re not well, Cas. You never were — you couldn’t have been — but you’re even worse off than you were in New Eden. It’s going to take time.”

“Before I’m capable of making decisions,” he clarifies, and she nods.

“Yes. I don’t like it, but — yes, Cas.”

“And yet you encourage Samandriel to come see me.”

Her mouth tightens.

“I encourage Samandriel to come be a friend to you. I told him very specifically to wait to court you properly, however, because if you _were_ up here, telling me you loved him, I would have nothing different to say. He’s sweet, but he’s young, in ways you and I never were, and I’m not sure he’ll ultimately make you happy, either. But now is not the time to decide your future, Cas. Now is the time to heal from your past. That — that’s all I want. For you and for the rest of us. Please understand that, at least.”

He shakes his head.

“I do, Anna.” Certainly, it’s a relief to know that she neither expects or wants him to marry Samandriel. “But _you_ need to understand that — that Dean isn’t a part of my past I need to heal from. If I’m suffering now, if I’m unwell — it’s because I’m looking at a future without him.”

She’s silent for a long, long moment, just looking at him.

Then she lowers her head, bringing a hand to her face.

“Yes. You are,” she says. She lifts her head, taking a steadying breath. “And even if you don’t realize it now — that’s for the best, Cas.”

“You don’t understand—"

“I do, Cas. Believe me, I do. But you don’t, and it will be a while before you do, and that — that’s okay. I let you down, when I left New Eden. I regret that. But I won’t let you down, now. However long it takes — I’ll be with you, and we’ll get there together.”

He closes his eyes. He’s so, so tired of fighting with her about this, tired of not being left to grieve the way he wants to, the way he needs to.

Of being told that this thing, this precious, wonderful thing that, well-intentioned or not, they stole from him prematurely, isn’t worth grieving at all.

“I bought a book, before I left.”

Even with his eyes shut, he can feel her confusion.

“A book.”

“I had — _shelves_ of books, but — someone else picked them out for me. Just before they brought me here, though, I went into town with Dean and the others, and — I bought a book. It wasn’t like the other books I’d been reading, but I wanted to try it.”

“I don’t understand.”

He nods, opening his eyes, satisfied.

“Good. I’m glad you recognize that.” He takes a deep breath. “I chose that book myself. I don’t know how it would have turned out, if it would have been a good choice or not, but it was _my_ choice. And now — I’ll never get to know how it ends. Even if it ended badly — I deserved to find out.”

She shakes her head.

“It’s a book, Cas. It’s a couple days’ worth of reading, if it turns out to be bad. You’re looking at a lifetime of consequences for a choice you couldn’t really make.”

“If you’d like to look at it that way.”

“There’s no other way _to_ look at it.”

“How would you know?” he counters. “You weren’t there.”

“I didn’t _need_ to be, Cas. Three weeks in the dungeon. That’s it, that’s all your freedom cost him. And yet, despite all his apparent promises — he waited until I forced his hand. Trust me — it ends _bad._ ”

“You _did_ force his hand, Anna! He had no idea what the consequences would be. Perhaps it was three weeks — which is still not acceptable — but it could have been months. He could have been whipped, or beaten . It could have cost him his crown. He had _no_ way of knowing.”

“No, _you_ had no way of knowing. _He_ knew! Maybe not exactly, but he knew it would be a price he could afford to pay, and he refused, because at the end of the day, Cas? Maybe he wasn’t going to touch you, but he _liked_ having you there, available for his leisure in some way or another ! I’ m not sure he wouldn’t have kept you forever if I had let him, and that — that makes him a _monster_!”

For a moment, all Cas can do is stare.

And then there’s a spark, something warm and bright flickering within.

“You think . . .” he starts, ire briefly forgotten. Sam and Charlie seemed to think Dean missed him, that Dean _did_ want to see him again, that the only thing that prompted that awful letter and stopped him from coming along was the belief that Cas had meant for them to part.

But that is Sam and Charlie, and Cas doesn’t doubt they’re swayed by what they must know he wants to hear.

Anna, on the other hand . . . perhaps she’s never met Dean, and perhaps that means she’s wrong, but her instincts are good and she’s always been clever, and since she has absolutely no reason to tell Cas what she just did, clearly thinks it’s a mark _against_ Dean -

What if she’s right?

“Stop that. That — that isn’t a good thing.”

“You think he would, though?” Cas sits forward, intent. “Forever? What makes you think that?”

She starts vigorously shaking her head, backing toward the door.

“That is a _bad_ thing, Cas, very bad, and I refuse to encourage you in this — this _madness._ ”

“But you believe it,” he presses. “You wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t.”

“How can you _want_ that?”

“How can I not?” he counters, heart beating fast, the concept irresistible and precious in his mind.

To Anna, or to the Gardens. Those were always his choices, and by the time he left, he knew he would not be happy with either one.

But if Dean wasn’t biding his time to be able to set him free — if Dean was, in actuality, trying to figure out how to _keep_ him, and forever, at that . . .

“This is a waste of time,” Anna grits out. “The point is — you’re probably not going to see him again, and it’s for the best, and either way — you need to accept that.”

Cas blinks, then slowly nods.

“Right.”

She narrows her eyes.

“You’re not.”

“Of course not.” The two-week mark will occur in four days. Dean could potentially appear any time in the next week.

Cas has been hoping, has been holding onto the thought since Sam and Charlie told him it may well come to pass, but if Anna, by some miracle, turns out to be right, then-

“I’m going to bed now,” she mutters. “We’ll just — we’ll work on it.”

He tries not to smile.

“Alright. Good night, Anna.”

She stares at him for a moment, then sighs.

“Fine. Good night, Cas.”

And even though she’s clearly still upset, judging by the way she briskly shuts the door behind her, and there’s still the matter of the royal heirs — of noblewomen and princesses — to worry about . . .

Cas goes to bed feeling lighter than he has all day.

Of course, with morning comes reason, and Cas goes down for breakfast considerably more sober than when he went to sleep.

A steady drone of talk about the issue of heirs doesn’t help; whatever Anna thinks his desires may have been, Dean did _not_ end up keeping Cas, after all. Much as the thought still warms him, reality must be faced.

By the end of breakfast, which concludes with a collective agreement that a marriage to Princess Isabela is truly the best option available, Cas is feeling rather melancholy, and Anna doesn’t seem much better.

“I thought you wanted a marriage alliance,” Cas points out as they head for the river, and Anna’s shoulders draw up, just slightly. “The words ‘sacrificial omega with better lineage’ were used to discount a volunteer, if I recall.”

“Yes, they were. And they were apt.” Anna clears her throat. “The marriage alliance makes the most sense. Assuming you can talk her into it.”

“Isn’t it her king’s choice?”

“Edgewater won’t force a marriage. If she declines, she may be stripped of her title, but she has a lesser title and fortune from her mother that he’s not legally allowed to deny her.”

Cas blinks.

“You know a lot about them. About Winchester, too, actually.”

Anna huffs.

“I have to. You can’t get anything done if you don’t know how the game is played.”

Cas supposes this is why she spends so much time in the library, but still; he wonders where she finds the energy.

But then, he doesn’t care much for the politics of it all; he thought they were stupid in New Eden, and he thinks they’re stupid here. Most likely, they’re stupid in Edgewater, too (though this sounds like a very nice deal for the Princess, in his opinion).

“Do you think she’ll refuse?” he asks, trying not to sound too hopeful. Anna swallows, looking down as they cross the grassy, sloping field.

“I don’t know. She’s — by all accounts, she’s a rebel.”

Cas brightens.

“Oh. That’s nice.”

Anna gives him a sharp look.

“If it’s not a princess, it will be someone else. It won’t be you. Remember that.”

He scowls.

“I’m sure you won’t let me forget it.”

“For good reason. _Anyway_ ,” she continues, before he can retort. “She’s a rebel, but — she’ll do what’s right, at the end of the day. At least, I think so. She _can_ be somewhat difficult.”

Cas tilts his head.

“And they put all that in your library books?”

Anna coughs.

“No. They put it in the newsprints. They have a backlog, at the library.”

“Oh.” He frowns. “But why would you research the Edgewater princess?”

“Because — it’s all part of the politics, Cas. It was important.” She sighs. “Besides, in a worst-case scenario, I’d want to know where more allies might be found.”

It’s a disturbing thought.

“Worst-case scenario.”

“The capital being completely uncooperative. Force would need to be used.”

“Expanding rights for omegas in Winchester, you might convince the populace of, but I doubt you could muster a revolution, Anna. I may not know much, but I gather that the kingdom _is_ prosperous, and plenty of them benefit.”

“Maybe,” she says, non-committal. “The point is — if the alliance is right for Edgewater . . . I think she’d do it.”

Sadness pinches at his chest, at that thought.

“Is she — do the prints have an etching?”

Anna shrugs, still striding briskly across the grass.

“A few.”

“Ah. And . . . is she, um. Is she very beautiful?”

“Extremely. What little she lacks in beauty is accounted for in charm,” Anna mutters. “Or so they say.”

Cas’s heart sinks.

“Oh.”

“Honestly, if it does come to that — he’ll be in love with her before they’ve been married a month, I’m sure.”

She sounds unfairly grim about it, given that the words are as unnecessary as they are cruel and yet she chose to speak them, anyway.

Dean’s king and council always intended to deny him a wife, a mate. Cas should be happy for him, for yet another injustice potentially corrected.

Instead, he finds himself unable to answer her at all, and he steps down toward the glimmering water with a very heavy heart.

“And — you’re, uh. You’re sure he wants to see me? ‘Cause maybe he just cried because — I mean — I said some really nice stuff, and—"

“He wants to see you,” Sam says firmly. “Before we left, he told us to make sure you knew he’d like to say goodbye.”

Dean deflates a little, leaning into the back of the carriage seat.

“Okay. So . . . he wants me to _leave_ after he sees me, then.”

Sam grimaces.

“That’s not what he said.”

“I mean, it — it kind of is.”

“It’s really not.”

Dean huffs.

“How would _you_ know?”

“Because I know _Cas,_ and I know he cares about you, and he’ll be thrilled to see you.”

“But—"

“ _Dean._ ”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Dean sniffs. “Just trying to make sure I’m — you know. Prepared.”

Sam lets out a long sigh.

“Right.”

“You’re not a _mind-reader,_ Sam. You could be totally misunderstanding.”

“Dean. He told me that to make sure you at least came. But he said himself that he missed you. And he didn’t _want_ to say goodbye, remember? He still doesn’t.”

“How do you—"

The carriage door swings open, Charlie gracefully climbing in despite it still being in motion, her expression stern as she shuts it behind her.

“He _knows._ Now shut up and figure out what you’re going to say to him,” she adds, settling in beside Sam.

Dean hesitates.

“Well. I mean. The — the usual round of questions, to make sure he’s, you know. All there.”

Charlie looks at him for a long moment, and then shuts her eyes.

“Maybe we should have had _you_ bring some white chrysanthemums,” she mutters, and Sam straightens up like a startled cat.

“ _Charlie,_ ” he hisses, kind of sounding like one, too, but Dean’s too busy turning red to be amused.

“Dude,” he sputters, unconsciously glancing around, like somebody’s about to catch him doing something he shouldn’t. “I’m not — I can’t initiate a _courtship._ ”

She frowns.

“Why not, actually?”

“Because I don’t know how he’ll feel about it!”

“Well, try to give him the chrysanthemums and he’ll tell you.”

“Hell no. First, I’ve gotta make sure he’s doing okay, and then — if he doesn’t mind me staying—"

“He doesn’t,” she interjects, bored.

“ _Then,_ I can just — spend some time with him. Maybe see where he’s at.” Dean clears his throat, slumping a little. “I mean. It’s been two months. That’s kind of a long time. He might’ve forgot all about me, for the most part.”

After all, if Cas _was_ in a place where he’d have accepted Dean’s cabin-in-the-woods proposal, it’d be because he didn’t have anything else going on. Now that he doesn’t _have_ to spend all his time with Dean or Dean’s family in order to get any company at all, he really might not _want_ to.

He really might just say goodbye, maybe even yell at Dean a little — Sam and Charlie are both young and naive and have clearly read too many novels off Cas’s bookshelf — and then that’ll be that. At best, he might want to be like, a penpal.

Which — as much as Dean hated the thought of never seeing or hearing from him again, the idea of getting regular updates about him moving on from Lawrence, from _Dean,_ might be a little past what he can bear.

“Dean. We saw him two weeks ago. He cried when he thought he wouldn’t see you again. He did everything short of make us promise we’d bring you to him. Please. Please stop being a moron.”

Dean sighs, turning his head toward the carriage window.

“That’s what you _think_ happened—"

“You’re not _seriously_ calling _us_ delusional—"

“But weren’t you the one telling me about _closure_ ? That could be all he’s after, and sure, maybe he’d be upset if he didn’t get it, but — that’s not the same thing. It’s definitely not enough to justify going around giving people white fucking _chrysanthemums_.”

It’s an outdated tradition, anyway, at least in Dean’s opinion. These days, you don’t ask to court someone unless you’re pretty positive they’re going to say _yes,_ and the whole flower-acceptance rituals are kind of pointless. Frankly, Dean’s always known he’d never get to court anybody, but in another life, where he did? He’d make his own rules for it, and they’d be better ones.

If you’re really _serious_ about someone, you should be doing a lot more than consulting your grandmother’s polite-society handbook, is all he’s saying.

“If only other people had your hangups,” Charlie mutters, and Dean frowns at her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says quickly. “Anyway — do you have any idea, at all, about what you’re going to say?”

He colors.

“Uh. Yeah, I think so. For the most part.”

They both look at him expectantly.

“What?” he asks, uneasy.

“Well? Let’s hear it.”

“Oh. Okay.” He clears his throat. “Well, first, you gotta run through a standard question set. Sounds like he remembers his name, obviously, but you need to ask about his birthday and other important dates and stuff, and there’s some other memory questions, for long-term and short-term, and then there’s a motor-skills t—"

“ _No,_ ” Charlie interjects, shaking a finger at him. Beside her, Sam looks appalled. “The first thing you say to him after two months is _not_ going to be a cognitive health checkup.”

“But that’s why I’m _going_.”

“No, it’s _not,_ and everyone stuck in this stupid carriage with you knows it — including you!” She crosses her arms, scowling. “You already fucked up with the letter. This is your _last chance._ ”

He hesitates.

“I don’t want — chances, or whatever. And even if I did . . . I think I’m already out of ‘em.”

“Oh, my _God_ . You know what, I don’t think _Cas_ is the one who needs to worry about brain damage.”

“Hey, I’m just being—"

“Difficult, like you _always_ are—"

Sam clears his throat.

“ _We_ told him we missed him.”

They both quiet, startled.

“Okay?”

“Because that was how we felt,” Sam continues slowly, as if explaining times tables to a small child. “And then Cas said _he_ missed us. Because that was how _he_ felt. And then he explained the misunderstanding where we thought he _wanted_ to leave, but actually it turned out someone forced him. And _then,_ we spent a bunch of time with him and established that he wanted us to come back and spend _more_ time with him. And then he told us he missed _you,_ and he wanted to see you.”

Dean hesitates, still unclear on how exactly Cas said what he said or what he might really have meant by it.

“Okay, so . . . what are you trying to tell me, here?”

Sam just blinks, the picture of innocence.

“I’m just telling you how we played it. Seeing him again. In case you wanted to do the same.”

“Uh. Okay, awesome. Except I don’t follow.”

Sam nods, like he expected that.

“Well, when we first saw him, we told him how we felt about him being gone, and then he told us how _he_ felt about it, and then we cleared up some misunderstandings, and then we hung out and talked about where we wanted our future relationship to go. And then he told us about his feelings some more.”

Charlie looks surprised.

“Oh, cool. We totally did all that, didn’t we?”

Dean, for his part, is still baffled.

“So . . . you’re telling me to talk about my _feelings?_ ”

Sam looks pleased.

“Yes, Dean. Very good.”

Dean generously decides to ignore his tone.

“Right, but — if I do that, I might as well — fuck, I might as well just hand him a bouquet of white _chrysanthemums_. Just — no. Out of the question, Sammy.”

They both look at him for a moment, evidently dumbfounded by his superior logic.

And then Charlie sighs and turns away to stare out the window.

Anyway, Dean’s feeling considerably less relaxed by the time Mills Park comes into view, and despite what he felt comfortable sharing with the two asshole busybodies taking turns glaring at him across the carriage aisle, he’s kind of panicking.

The medical check is going to take an hour, tops, and that’s if Dean’s as slow as he is thorough, which leaves him three full days after that to figure out, never mind what he’s supposed to say once he gives Cas’s brain the all-clear.

Of course, they _did_ say Cas had a job, which Dean’s a little worried about, in case somebody’s trying to take advantage of him like they did in New Eden — but supposedly Cas likes it, and it’ll at least leave Dean some time to regroup.

Well, assuming Cas even wants to see him after the first time. Maybe he’ll just — share a few words about his time in Lawrence, get his closure, and then send Dean on the stupid river tour.

Dean really, really doesn’t want to have to go on the river tour.

“Okie dokie,” Charlie starts, clapping her hands together as they pull up to the front drive. “Be cool, Dean. Just focus on the fact that he missed you, and he really wants to see you. Okay?”

“Right,” he mutters, feeling decidedly uncool and honestly, a little suspicious of this advice. For all he knows, they could be lying to him, just for their own sick amusement. Maybe they sided with Cas in the separation, and this is the three of them getting back at him for throwing pies and making murder accusations and Dean’s about to be humiliated and heartbroken with the three of them staring on in cold satisfaction.

“Repeat after me. ‘Cas missed me, and he wants to see me, and if I can just say what I mean instead of whatever weird Winchester bullshit tends to fall out instead, I can end up a very happy Dean-bean for the rest of forever.’”

Dean makes a face.

“The hell?”

She pats his shoulder, the carriage slowly rolling to a stop.

“I’m just saying. Some white chrysanthemums would probably go a long way.”

Which is just fucking _ridiculous._ You don’t show up two months after a guy runs away from you — or gets kidnapped away, but that’s hardly better — and start shoving practical marriage proposals at him.

These things require _delicacy._

Not that Dean is going to _do_ any of them, at _any_ point, because regardless of whatever weird fantasy-world Charlie and Sam seem to live in? Dean has a _fantastic_ grip on reality, and in _reality-_

Cas probably wants nothing more to do with him.

“Fuck,” he mumbles nervously, having decided the best thing to do is just ignore her. “So like — how do we do this? Do we throw rocks at his window, sneak in through the back way — what?”

She makes a face, reaching for the door handle.

“No, Dean. We go up to the front door and _knock,_ like normal people.”

“Not that we’re really normal,” Sam points out cheerfully, eagerly scooting after her. He’s been visibly brimming with excitement for the last half hour, and honestly, Dean resents it. It’s just insensitive, is what it is. Dean might be about to get completely crushed for a second time, and Sam has the nerve to act like he’s still just looking _forward_ to it.

“Right. Okay.” He takes a deep breath, rubbing his hands together, and then dashing a quick one through his hair. “How, uh. How do I — am I okay? Not that I need to — I don’t think he ever really thought I was like, really handsome, or anything-” although there was that time Cas said he was _beautiful,_ but that’s different from _attractive,_ and Dean wasn’t brave enough to ask what he meant by it- “But — I’ve been in a carriage all day, and—"

“And you look _great,_ ” Sam assures him, steadying Charlie on her way out.

“Besides,” she says, shaking out her skirts. “He did think you were handsome. He said so.”

Dean freezes.

“He — what?”

“Yup! We had a conversation about your virginity this one time, and he basically said it was hard to believe you still had it, since you’re super hot and a prince and stuff, but he felt bad for freaking you out if you did.”

Dean just gapes.

“You — you’re shitting me, right? Why would you even — you didn’t, did you?”

“Maybe not in those words _exactly,_ but —" She shrugs, offering Sam a hand, and Dean’s too horrified to even enjoy the awkward and ungainly sight of him climbing through the comparatively teeny carriage opening. “Now move your ass, Winchester. I didn’t get up at two in the morning so we could wait for him to eat _dinner._ ”

It takes him a moment, still stuck on the idea of Cas discussing his virginity with Sam and Charlie — there’s _no way_ that’s really how it went down — not to mention the fact that Cas supposedly said he was handsome — although he could have just been speaking objectively — but eventually he manages to stumble out of the carriage.

“Son of a bitch,” he mutters, glancing toward the house with no small amount of terror. If he weren’t so bowlegged, he thinks his knees would be knocking together, they’re trembling so bad.

He doesn’t even try to pretend it’s from sitting for so long.

“You’re fine,” Charlie assures him, slapping his back, and he nearly goes right over. “Now, let’s—"

She stops short, a look of horror crossing her face.

Confused, Dean follows her gaze.

He finds a pair of wide blue eyes looking back.

His stomach drops.

“Is that—"

“God _damn_ it—" Charlie starts, but Dean barely hears it, because not only is the stupid, obnoxious little brat from the hearings standing on the front steps of Cas’s current place of residence, but in his hands are-

“Why the _fuck_ are they pink?” Dean chokes out, eyes flying to Charlie’s. “Sam — Charlie — why are they _pink_?”

She winces.

“Don’t — it’s fine, Dean, just — just pretend you didn’t see him and do what you were gonna—"

“Prince Dean,” Samandriel calls, and then starts down the steps, frowning. “What are you doing here?”

Dean swallows, suddenly not sure.

Maybe he fell asleep in the carriage and this is just a really, really awful nightmare.

“I’m here to see Cas,” he manages, and Samandriel’s jaw tightens.

“Likewise.”

Dean thinks he might throw up.

Because the _only_ reason you ever bring somebody pink chrysanthemums is because you already brought them white ones — _and they accepted_ _them_.

He tries to form some kind of response, but nothing comes out.

“You must be Samandriel,” Sam says quickly, stepping forward. “Hi. I’m Prince Sam.”

Samandriel’s gaze flicks to his, suspicious.

“I know. Castiel has been looking forward to your visit. I was looking forward to meeting you, as well, but . . .”

He looks back to Dean, eyes hard.

“I wasn’t expecting him, too. Did you ask Castiel’s permission?”

And honestly, as big as Sam ended up getting, Dean has never in his life seen him try to use it, wouldn’t have said he could really even _picture_ Sam doing any dumb, alpha-posturing bullshit, because Sam is pretty much a gentle puppy in a gangly giant’s body and he’s the least-alpha alpha Dean’s ever met.

Right now, though — Sam draws himself up fully, an unmistakable threat in his stance, and looks back at Samandriel with cold eyes.

“Actually, we bring him here at Castiel’s request.”

And even though Sam’s making him sound like some sort of sordid parcel delivered to an imperious warlord, the words are _dripping_ dominance, enough that even Dean’s gut reaction is to either step back or try and fight him.

He shakes it off — it’s Sam, after all, and none of it’s directed at him — but Samandriel flinches.

Still, the boy keeps his spine straight, and after a beat of hesitation, takes another step forward.

“Well — I think you should ask him again.”

Sam smiles slightly, at that, an impressively terrifying smile that just looks _weird_ on Dean’s baby brother’s face.

“Yeah? I think you should ask him which of us he wants to leave, right now.”

“Dude, no,” Dean hisses, appalled. “Pink. Fucking. Chrysanthemums.”

Dean would rather wait in the parlor for two hours than hear Cas tell him to turn around and _go._

Sam ignores him.

“Fine,” Samandriel growls. “I will.” And with that, he swiftly turns, ascending the steps and knocking firmly at the door. Sam just folds his arm and watches.

There’s a tense silence while they all wait for someone to answer.

“Really, Sam?” Dean mutters, torn between staring at the door with dread and looking at that stupid, awful bouquet of pink chrysanthemums, still carefully clutched in Samandriel’s left hand. “Alpha, much?”

He can practically feel the bitch-face radiating from beside him.

“Obviously, _you_ weren’t going to.”

Which — Dean doesn’t have a lot to say to that.

At last, the door swings open, a petite brunette breaking into a friendly smile when she sees the kid.

“Oh, Alfie! You’re a little later than usual, we weren’t expecting you. Come in, sweetie, I’ll go let him know right away!”

Samandriel — Alfie? That doesn’t even make _sense —_ smiles back.

“Thank you, Lucy, please do.” He sniffs. “Though he has some other guests, as well.”

She blinks, gaze moving beyond him, and looks startled when she sets eyes on the party.

“Oh — Prince Sam and Miss Bradbury.” She looks at Dean for a moment, confused, and then stiffens. “No — surely you’re not—"

“Prince Dean?” Samandriel finishes innocently. “He is.”

Lucy’s eyes harden.

And then she reaches to the side and, a moment later, steps out, brandishing an umbrella.

“I _knew_ you two couldn’t be trusted!” she shouts, furious. “Well, you might have surprised us, but Alfie would give his _life_ for Castiel, and the rest of us won’t be far behind. You had best hope there’s an army behind you, because we won’t let you take him without a fight!”

And then she punctuates this by pulling a fucking _rapier_ out of the umbrella handle.

Sam’s Alpha Shoulders go slack, Charlie letting out a startled squeak on his other side.

“What? Woah, no, we’re not — no one is taking Cas _anywhere,_ we just wanted to _visit_!”

Lucy casts aside the umbrella, jabbing the rapier toward them.

“To _visit,_ ” she sneers. “What could his highness _possibly_ have to say to Castiel? Has he not done _enough_?”

“Ha, trust me, he hasn’t,” Charlie mutters, and Dean scowls at her.

“Dude.”

She shrugs.

“It’s true.”

“It’s also _not the fucking time._ ”

Sam clears his throat, giving them both dirty looks.

“Cas asked to see him,” he insists, though he raises his hands, placating. “Just — please tell him we’re here, alright? I’m sure he’ll confirm that.”

She gives them a suspicious look.

“What, so you can storm the manor while I’m up there?”

“I can keep watch,” the kid offers, and the rapier tip lowers slightly.

“Well.” She frowns, thinking. “Yes, that would probably be best. If one of them comes past the steps, though — stab them.”

Samandriel grimaces briefly, but then nods.

“Of course.”

Satisfied, Lucy turns the rapier over to him.

“I’ll be back as quick as I can. Remember — don’t be afraid to do them damage! I know you’re as gentle as they come, love, but they probably deserve it. And it’s a skinny thing, barely even a sword — I’m sure it won’t be too bloody!”

He looks alarmed.

“I — I don’t think that will be necessary?”

She smiles brightly, reaching up to pat his cheek.

“Hopefully not! But be sure that you do, if it is,” she adds kindly, and with a final glare over her shoulder, ducks back into the house.

They all stand in silence for a long moment, Samandriel awkwardly holding the rapier, looking considerably more unsure than he did a few minutes ago.

Eventually, Dean clears his throat.

“What the fuck is this place?”

Cas spends the day in bed after they come back from the river, because Anna is busy with a commission and Samandriel has a bakery shift and even if they weren’t otherwise occupied, he thinks he’d feign illness if it kept him from being bothered.

Anyway, he prepares two pots of tea and steals a book from the downstairs library, and after the first couple of restless hours in his sad, only moderately comfortable bed, he can almost pretend he’s back at the castle, idling away the day until Dean finally comes for him.

In a perfect world, he reflects morosely, he could have some sort of in-between. Visits with his sister and friends, and spells of quiet solitude; satisfying work and equally satisfying days in bed; and at the end of all of it — Dean.

But soon enough, someone else might have that to look forward to, and as much as Cas tries to focus on the days he already got, on Anna’s unintentional reassurance, on the fact that at least once more, Dean will come to see him -

He can’t help it.

He’s sad, and disappointed, and he thinks he’s going to be that way for a very, very long time.

Thus, it’s a surprise to him when Lucy knocks on his door at half past four, eyes a little wild when he calls her in.

“Alfie’s come again, of course, and I’m sure you’ll be wonderfully pleased by what he’s brought, but — your so-called friends are here.”

Cas immediately straightens, setting aside his book.

“They are?” He swallows, pulse quickening in fear and hope both. “Just — just Sam and Charlie, or—"

Lucy’s lips purse.

“No. The other prince came, too.” She sniffs, oblivious to the effect these words have on him. “Alfie’s guarding the door, and I’d lay money they’re just arrogant enough to have come alone, but I can gather the others, if need be, and I’m sure we can chase them o—"

“No,” Cas says quickly, fear briefly sidelining the pure sort of elation that’s risen within. “No, I — I need a minute, to make myself presentable, but — go. Please make sure they don’t leave.”

Dean came.

Dean really — he _came._

Cas couldn’t bear it if he left before Cas made it down there, even if it were just to go to the Singer Estates for the night.

“But — how can you — you can’t really mean to _see_ him?”

“I can’t _not_ see him,” Cas counters, hastily throwing off the blankets and standing, rushing to his wardrobe. “Please — go back down, ask them to wait. I swear, I’ll be there as soon as I can, just — don’t let them leave.”

“I don’t understand,” Lucy protests, dismayed. “I don’t understand at all, your sister said—"

“My sister is a fool, where Dean is concerned. What’s more, she’s wrong.” Cas quickly starts pulling off his shirt, and there’s an uncomfortable cough behind him. “Lucy. I’ll take your morning kitchen shift all of next week, just — please ask them to stay.”

There’s silence, but once Cas has a fresh shirt on and turns his head, he finds her still standing there, teeth worrying at her lip.

“Anna would want me to send them away.”

Cas grits his teeth.

“Yes, well, Anna can have her way another time. I believe it’s my turn.”

“But—"

“Lucy,” he snaps, pausing at the ties to his pants. “If you don’t wish to have a hand in this, fine, but — I will see him tonight, whether Anna likes it or not. Save me the trouble of stealing a horse.”

Without waiting for a response, he shoves his pants down, and hears a hasty shuffle behind him.

“I — I suppose I can, but — I have to inform Anna.”

Cas nods, rummaging in the drawer for his least offensive pair of trousers.

“If you must.”

“Madness,” she mumbles, then sighs, and Cas decides he can tuck in his shirt and put on his waistcoat on his way down the stairs. “Well, we’ll all be down there waiting, then.”

He finishes pulling up his pants, making short, appalling work of the ties.

“Yes,” he agrees. “We will.”

And then he snags his waistcoat off the chair and stalks right past her.

His irritation has burned out, waylaid by nerves once he makes it to the front door, but even if he’s a disheveled mess, he tries to tell himself it doesn’t matter.

How he looks isn’t going to sway Dean one way or another — it never has — and the most important thing is that Cas gets to see him at all.

Still. He runs a hand through his hair, double-checking the buttons on his waistcoat before he reaches for the door handle. He should at least look civilized, shouldn’t he?

(He doesn’t care much for it, when Samandriel says he’s beautiful, but in this particular moment, he wishes desperately that it were true.)

Resigned, he opens the door—

And finds Samandriel waiting on the first step.

“Castiel!” he exclaims, hastily straightening, and drops his — sword? “Hello! I — I brought these for you.”

He thrusts a bouquet of pink flowers forward with his other hand and dumbfounded, Cas takes them.

“I — thank you, but—"

There’s a strangled noise from beyond them, and Cas’s head snaps up, eyes searching.

A carriage is stopped in the circle drive, and in front of it—

He drops the flowers.

“Dean,” he murmurs, and Dean’s whole body seems to jerk at the sound, though Cas is distantly surprised he could even hear it.

Dean starts forward, eyes wide, and even from the front door, Cas can see his irises, green and gold in the fading daylight.

Something in him feels suddenly cracked.

“Cas — hey, I — I hope it’s okay that I—"

“Move,” Cas commands, swallowing a sudden lump in his throat, and everyone freezes — including Dean, to his frustration.

Samandriel, unfortunately, stays put.

“Uh,” Dean starts, and Cas impatiently steps outside, gripping Samandriel’s shoulder and firmly guiding him out of his path.

“Oh — but — and your flowers—"

“Not now,” Cas mumbles, hastening on, down the steps to where Dean is still stock-still, a baffling uncertainty in his face, though his eyes stay on Cas’s the entire time.

_As they should be,_ a part of him thinks, but it’s hardly new, and he accepts it.

He slows as he approaches, drinking in every new detail the proximity affords, the worried line of his brow, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, his lips, full and soft — at least when pressed against Cas’s own.

“S-sam and — and Charlie, they said — but I can go, if you don’t, I just — closure, or something, but it’s not a—"

Cas frowns, wondering if the lack of sense in Dean’s words is part of reality or simply his own delayed processing.

Regardless, Dean’s mouth is twisted in such a pained, unhappy way, Cas can’t stop himself from reaching out, thumb landing gently at the corner.

“Stop,” he says quietly. Dean’s mouth goes slack, pliant beneath his touch.

And then the cracked thing inside him crumbles, and suddenly, that single point of contact isn’t enough.

Cas shuts his eyes and closes the remaining distance, embracing him, and though Dean goes rigid in his arms when Cas just wants him soft, wants him close and holding on, Cas can’t help himself.

He leans into Dean, buries his face in his neck, and breathes in deep.

Dean hisses, shoulders drawing up, but still, Cas can’t bring himself to let go.

“I have missed you,” he chokes out, taking another desperate lungful, lightheaded from the joy that rushes through him. Dean is warm in his arms, and Cas can’t believe he ever had the nerve to describe Dean’s scent as merely pleasant, as just ‘very nice,’ because right now — right now, it — it’s making him feel like — like—

Abruptly, Dean’s shoulders sag, and then his arms circle Cas and Cas feels Dean’s nose, warm against his own throat, feels the sharp intake of breath, feels Dean’s fingers curl around his shoulders immediately after, clutching him tight, warm and solid and so, _so_ very beloved, and—

_Home,_ Cas thinks, eyes pricking with tears.

He finally feels _home._


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: none that I can think of, please let me know if I missed anything.

Dean’s not sure how long he stands there, clinging to Cas and helplessly breathing in sweet, rainy spring days, but he’s scared and he’s shameless and the moment Cas touched him, quieted him with a thumb against his mouth, _embraced_ him -

Dean knew he wasn’t letting go until someone made him.

_I have missed you,_ Cas said, and as bad as Dean feels about holding on this tight, openly scenting him like they’re a pair of cruelly-separated mates at last reunited when really, they’re just two people who were never meant to meet in the first place, he swears _Cas_ is doing it, too, is breathing in deep against Dean’s throat while he clutches back just as tightly.

Hell, Dean could almost believe Cas _did_ miss him — maybe even as much as he’d missed Cas.

“Missed you, too,” he finally remembers to say, though it’s barely more than a mumble, muffled against Cas’s shoulder. There’s a lump in his throat, and he shuts his eyes, determined not to shed any unalpha-like tears or anything else that might have Cas pulling back, trying to get away from it.

Dean doesn’t know how this visit is going to go, if he’s going to give Cas closure and leave him to admire the bouquet of pink chrysanthemums, eagerly awaiting the day the Northern kid comes bearing red ones, if Dean’s going to end up sleeping with Cas’s hastily drawn festival portrait for the rest of his lonely goddamn life, but for right now, he doesn’t want to worry about it.

He’s got Cas, safe and warm in his arms, holding onto him, and that — that’s all that matters.

Cas makes some sharp, hoarse noise, almost like a hiccup, and pushes his face more firmly into Dean’s neck, squeezing him even tighter, and just like that, Dean’s pretty sure he loses the crying battle.

“Did you?” Cas whispers, grip like iron, and Dean barely chokes down a sob. Why didn’t he hug Cas more, while he was in Lawrence? Yeah, kissing was — or should have been — out of the question, but Cas would hold his hand and sit close and Dean’s never, ever going to meet anybody else with soul-searing blue eyes and incredible wood-chopping biceps and thighs that could crush a man and even if he did, he doesn’t want them attached to anybody but Cas, so not hugging him all those nights after gardening and dinner and stupid, nonsense conversations was the biggest fucking mistake of his _life._

“Yeah.” His chest feels like it’s going to cave in, like Cas’s scent in his lungs is probably the only thing stopping it. “I did.”

“Good,” Cas says thickly, and then one arm shifts and suddenly there’s a hand in Dean’s hair, gently pressing his head toward the juncture between Cas’s neck and shoulder. Some deep, powerful instinct obeys the unspoken command and Dean takes a slow, deliberate breath, nosing carefully at a spot he has no business getting anywhere near, unable to stop himself.

Cas shudders.

The helpless rush of emotion settles slightly, and Dean does it again, because it feels _good,_ strangely calming, his pulse shifting into a hard, steady thrum as Cas’s fingers curl in his hair.

“C-castiel?” somebody says weakly, and Dean swallows a growl of irritation.

His teeth suddenly ache, unbearably present in his mouth.

“Quiet!” somebody else hisses, but since it isn’t Cas, since Cas is still wrapped around him, carefully holding Dean’s head still, huffing softly at his neck, Dean can’t be bothered to try and figure out who.

He just — he missed Cas so, _so_ much, and holding him like this, Cas’s scent close and unmistakable, Cas warm and solid and tucked safely against him — right now, it feels like _everything._

Dean never wants to let go again.

He licks his lips, thinks his tongue accidentally brushes Cas’s throat, thinks Cas might immediately tilt his head in response, might be _baring_ for him-

“Uh. Wait — shit, Charlie, I think he might be about to-”

Dean opens his mouth, blood rushing in his ears, Cas’s scent an irresistible cloud around him, sweet and potent, and suddenly, separations and chrysanthemums and lovelorn Northern children hardly even seem important, because actually, _Dean_ has Cas right now, which is as it should be, and there _isn’t_ any good reason he can see for that to change-

Something thwacks against his head, and Dean startles, jerking back, surprise and pain cutting through the haze as light streams back into his world, the breeze and birds abruptly loud around him.

“No!” Charlie snaps. “Bad alpha! Just — kiss him like a goddamn normal person, for heaven’s sake!”

Heat floods Dean’s cheeks — he can’t _kiss_ Cas, not when it’s been two months and the guy’s finally free and he’s letting someone else court him, to boot — but then Cas makes a soft, miserable noise in his arms, blue eyes blinking in confusion when Dean looks back, and Dean quickly disentangles himself enough to lift a hand, cupping Cas’s cheek.

“Hey — you okay, buddy?”

Cas swallows.

“No.” He blinks, brow creasing, grip suddenly loosening in Dean’s hair. “Yes. I — I don’t know.”

Fear trickles into Dean, and suddenly he remembers the whole reason he came here in the first place.

“Shit. Come on, let’s — we should sit down, I gotta ask you some stuff-” Dean glances around, idly thumbing Cas’s cheek, trying to locate a comfortable perch.

The boy is still standing on the steps, rapier limp at his side, gaping at them.

“Were you about to-” he starts, eyes wide, and Dean frowns at him.

“Back up, kid, we need to sit down. Cas might be sick.”

Cas’s head twitches in his hand.

“I’m not sick.”

Dean shakes his head.

“You don’t know that.”

Cas squints, though Dean swears his cheek presses a little harder into Dean’s palm, stubble a soft scratch against the skin.

“I do know that.”

“Listen, your sister drugged you a couple months ago, and sometimes these things have side effects you might not even notice-”

Understanding dawns, an odd warmth blooming with it.

“The Mills Park doctor interviewed me when I arrived, Dean,” he interrupts gently, and the hand in Dean’s hair finally moves, pulling back to cover Dean’s where it still rests against Cas’s cheek. Dean relaxes a little, though he’s not quite sure he trusts this mysterious doctor of theirs, even if Jody probably wouldn’t keep on some kind of quack. “I’m fine.”

“Still-” he starts, and Cas tilts his head, pushing further into their joined hands with a slight smile.

“I am. How are _you_ , Dean?” The smile fades a little, Cas’s gaze searching. “Have you been — well?”

Which — that kind of depends on how you define _well,_ but since Dean didn’t come here to make pretty speeches or try and guilt-trip Cas into coming ho- coming back to the castle with him — with them — he does his best to smile.

“Been great, Cas,” he lies, and for some reason, Cas’s smile disappears entirely.

“Oh.” After a beat, Cas lets go of his hand, finally stepping back, forcing Dean to let _him_ go, too. “That — I’m glad, Dean.”

Dean stands there, feeling cold and confused and disappointed the conversation didn’t somehow end with Cas stepping back into his arms for some indefinite amount of time, and after a while, he remembers at least one question that’s still relevant.

“And — you? I know you said — health-wise, you’re okay, but — everything’s good here? You, uh. You’ve settled in, alright?”

Cas looks at him for a long moment, strangely sad, and Dean gets the unbearable sense that he’s done something wrong.

“As much as that’s possible,” Cas eventually says.

Dean has no idea what that means.

“Would you like some tea?” Cas continues, gesturing vaguely toward the door. “Though — you’ll have to wait, while I make it — assuming you don’t need to leave right away—”

That sense of _you-fucked-up_ just grows.

“No — of course not,” Dean says quickly, and Cas’s face falls. “I mean — we don’t have to leave. We — we came to see _you,_ so . . . we’ll stay as long as you want.”

Cas hesitates.

“I doubt that,” he murmurs, and Dean blinks, but then Cas is backing up, glancing toward Sam and Charlie with an almost embarrassed look. “Hello, Charlie. Sam. Thank you for coming back.”

Sam and Charlie give him weirdly dismayed smiles, tentatively shuffling forward with open arms.

“Couldn’t keep us away,” Charlie chirps, giving him a quick, tight hug before stepping back and making space for Sam.

(Dean tries not to notice or be relieved that neither hug lasts a fraction as long as his did, not that Cas indulgently letting him cling means all that much.)

(It means a lot, at least to Dean.)

“Well,” Cas starts when they’re done, giving Dean an uncertain look. “If you’ll follow me to the kitchen . . .?”

Which is a ridiculous question — Dean would follow him anywhere, so long as he was invited — but he makes himself smile and nod like the normal person he isn’t.

“Sure,” he says, gesturing for Cas to lead the way, and Cas straightens up a little, giving him a small half-smile in return.

Then he takes Dean’s partially outstretched hand, grasping it firmly, and starts toward the manor.

Cas glares at the pot of water on the stove, mildly hopeful that it will somehow help it boil faster.

He’s never felt so impatient in his _life._

It doesn’t help that not one of his four guests seems willing to make conversation, creating an orchestra of silence and awkward shuffling behind him, and that Billie, whose presence he normally wouldn’t object to, has chosen to drink her cup of tea right there in the kitchen, scrutinizing said guests with a very special brand of mild unconcern.

Cas huffs quietly, trying to will the water hot.

Another six hours seem to pass before bubbles finally begin to line the bottom of the pan, but he relaxes at the sight of them, mollified by this apparent progress. He was beginning to think the stove was _broken_.

But then, he has a lot of ridiculous thoughts, sometimes.

For instance, he thinks back to that moment in the drive, to Dean _finally_ there, in his arms, even, to how good it felt to scent Dean, to have Dean’s face buried in his neck, to feel his _mouth,_ that fleeting press of tongue-

And even now, he has the insane thought that, in that moment, he was ready for Dean to _bite_ him.

Of course, that was the furthest thing from Dean’s mind, no doubt. Dean would never bite him, under any circumstances.

(Cas watches the surface of the water quiver, and thinks about it anyway.)

Abruptly, though, there’s a flurry of footsteps in the hall, and he tenses again, thoughts abandoned as he whirls to face the door, bracing himself for Anna’s inevitable onslaught.

But the only person who appears around the corner is Lucy.

“Castiel,” she gasps out as bursts into the kitchen, agitation clear in her face, and Cas waits, grim, because _surely . . ._

But still, there’s no sign of Anna in her wake, not in sight or sound, and surprised, he turns his full attention to Lucy.

“I — I can’t find your sister _anywhere._ Not in the sewing room or the parlor or by the river or — or _anywhere._ ”

Behind him, Billie hums.

“What a shame. You all just missed her.”

Lucy’s jaw drops, and Cas turns to face Billie, curious. The dinner shift will be in any time now; where would Anna go, at this hour?

“What? Where has she gone?”

Billie idly taps the handle of her mug, gaze impassive.

“A messenger boy dropped by a little while ago. Asked me to pass on an . . . urgent message from the print office. She left right away.”

“But — but it’s past four o’ clock! How urgent could it _be?”_

“Very urgent,” Billie intones, and Lucy’s shoulders bunch, hands balling into fists at her sides.

“But her brother _needs_ her!”

“He doesn’t, actually,” Cas interjects, though he’s hard-pressed to be upset right now. A trip to the print office will take at _least_ an hour, and Anna’s just left.

The bubbles in the pot gurgle with vigor, and Cas smiles approvingly at them.

“But-”

“You should rest, Lucy,” Billie suggests. “You’re on the dinner shift tonight, aren’t you? I’ll keep an eye on our guests. They don’t seem inclined to make trouble, thus far.”

Lucy hesitates, eyes flicking toward Cas, though she relaxes a little.

“I suppose you _would_ be more effective than I would . . .”

Billie’s lips quirk.

“Perhaps.”

“I’m here, too,” Samandriel offers, and Lucy blinks.

“Oh — yes, of course you are, dear.” She clears her throat. “Well. Between the two of you . . . and Anna should be back soon enough, I’m sure . . . and if we send their driver along to the carriage house, they could hardly spirit you away . . .”

Cas patiently waits for her to reassure herself and leave, one eye on his pot. He feels like taking it off the stove now might distract her, but it’s ready and he wants Dean — and Sam and Charlie, of course — up in his room as soon as possible. Anna _might_ hurry, on account of dinner, but since she doesn’t know about his guests, she’s also been known to make other stops while in town on an errand.

Cas fervently hopes this will be the case today.

Lucy heaves a sigh.

“Alright. I’ll just be in my room, doing a bit of knitting, then. But come get me _immediately_ if you think there’s a problem!”

Billie inclines her head.

“Of course, Lucy. Enjoy your knitting.”

Lucy flashes a grateful smile, then turns a steely glare on Dean.

“Billie can hit a man with a book at twenty paces, and knock him out cold. Which is to say nothing of what she can do with a hot poker.” She lifts her chin, arching a brow. “You best behave yourself, your _highness._ ”

Dean looks appalled.

“Look — Lucy, right? We’re just here to _talk.”_

She snorts.

“As if I don’t know what men mean by _talking_. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?”

“Not at all! For the rest of us, an omega’s safety is no laughing matter. But I wouldn’t expect the likes of _you_ to understand that.”

And then she turns on her heel and stalks out of the kitchen, Dean staring open-mouthed in her wake.

Cas turns away to hide his smile, and quickly reaches for the pot.

“We can wait for it to steep upstairs,” he offers over his shoulder. “There’s only two chairs, but Dean can-” _sit on the bed with me,_ he almost says, but then he remembers Billie and Samandriel, listening closely. “Stand by the window. He likes that,” he adds, to sound more convincing.

He thinks he hears someone snort, but he focuses on pouring the water into the teapot.

“Actually,” Sam starts, and Cas glances back, curious. “You know — we didn’t get to meet Samandriel, last time. We’d love to get to know him, since he’s been such a good, um, friend, to you.”

“We would?” Charlie echoes, and Cas hears a soft thump.

“We really would,” Sam says firmly. “Maybe Cas should fix _two_ trays, and you and I and Samandriel can sit in the parlor, or something. Get to know each other.”

“But wouldn’t that mean-” Samandriel starts, and Sam cheerfully continues on.

“After all, Cas hasn’t seen Dean in _forever._ I mean, they never even got to say _goodbye._ They probably have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Well, but-”

“That sounds like an excellent plan, Sam,” Cas interrupts, giddy at the prospect. “And it very nicely solves the seating problem. You always were the sensible brother.”

Dean makes an offended noise.

“Dude, ser-”

“Thanks, Cas,” Sam enthuses. “I’m really looking forward to talking with you, Samandriel. Or do you prefer Alfie?”

“Um. Either is fine, but — but I’m not sure letting them be alone is really-”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Billie interjects smoothly. “His highness doesn’t look like much, in person. No doubt Castiel can hold his own, if it’s a problem.”

Dean huffs.

“Okay, hold the fu-”

“You’re absolutely right,” Sam enthuses. “Especially after those three weeks in the dungeon. Dean’s still kind of anemic, I think even _Lucy_ could probably beat him in hand-to-hand right now.”

“What the _hell,_ Sa-”

“As I was telling you the other day, Samandriel,” Cas adds cheerfully, swiping a second teapot off the shelf to the right of the stove. “I could have killed Dean any time I wanted. You have nothing to fear on my behalf.”

For some reason, the entire room goes quiet at that.

Then Billie hums.

“Well. That sounds settled to me.” She sounds amused, though that could be Cas’s imagination. “It’s a nice day out; why don’t the three of you . . . get acquainted, on the terrace?”

“Oh, but — but then we’ll be all the way _outside_ -”

“My room’s just down the hall from Castiel’s,” she offers. “He can shout if he needs anything. Though I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“That sounds very good, Billie, thank you,” Cas says before Samandriel can protest, carefully dunking a basket of tea in each of the pots and replacing the lids. “I think we’re ready, then. Sam, would you mind carrying your tray?”

“It would be my pleasure, Cas,” Sam returns sunnily, and the moment he’s come to the stove and accepted the tray, Cas reaches for the other, swiftly turning back around.

“Enjoy your tea,” Cas tells them brightly, though he hardly spares anyone a glance before catching Dean’s eye, eager to lead him upstairs and away from all this nonsense.

But Dean goes still, for some reason, expression some odd blend of frustration and amusement, and then he sort of smiles, a soft, crooked quirk of the lips with none of the previous moment’s annoyance.

Cas smiles back, something in him easing at the sight.

“Alright . . . but . . . Castiel, you — would you like to take these up with you?”

After a beat, Cas forces himself to look away, toward Samandriel and the pink flowers he’s hesitantly holding out.

There will be time to look at Dean when they make it upstairs, he promises himself.

“Of course — thank you.” He hesitates, a flicker of guilt intruding on his pleasure. “I’m sorry for dropping them, earlier. But I appreciate that you brought them.”

Samandriel lights up, straightening a little.

“You do?”

Cas nods. Flowers are much harder to come by, here at Mills Park, but he likes to have them on his table, and Samandriel has thus far been one of his only sources for getting them.

“Very much,” he says, though he’s already glancing back toward Dean, nonetheless impatient to make it out of the kitchen.

But Dean’s smile is gone, now, shoulders drooping, and as soon as he meets Cas’s eyes -

He quickly looks away again.

Cas’s stomach drops.

“Should I — should I just put them on your tray, then?”

Cas swallows, searching Dean’s expression briefly before making himself return his attention to Samandriel.

Upstairs, he tells himself. As soon as they’re upstairs — Cas can look his fill and try to figure out Dean’s strange mood.

“Please do.”

Samandriel gives him a small, shy smile, and quickly shuffles forward, setting them gently on the tray.

“I . . . well. We’ll talk another time, I suppose,” he says quietly. “But — don’t hesitate to call for Billie, if you need to.”

“I won’t,” Cas promises, trying not to look back at Dean. “I hope you and Sam and Charlie get on well,” he adds, to be polite, though part of him doesn’t much care one way or the other, so long as whatever rapport they do or don’t have keeps them all _downstairs._

At least until Anna comes home and ruins it all, anyway.

“Well, if you like them — I’m sure I will, too.”

“I hope so,” Cas says, inching toward the door. “Enjoy your tea, then. If you see Anna on her way back from the stables, tell her I’m just in my room having a cup of tea.”

“Of course,” Samandriel says warmly, and then his brow furrows. “Wait-”

“Dean,” Cas says, fixing him with a pointed gaze, and after a beat, Dean leaps up from his chair.

“Coming,” he says quickly, and Cas nods.

“Until later,” he offers the rest of the room, and hurries out the door before anyone manages to think of another way to stop him.

Of course, once they’ve actually made it to the room and Cas has taken a particular kind of satisfaction in boldly shutting and locking the door behind them, he finds himself feeling . . .

Well, shy.

The last time he saw Dean — the last time he was _alone_ with Dean — feels like a lifetime ago, in some ways, but Cas remembers it very clearly, and what he remembers _best_ is that—

“Where, um, where do you want me?”

Cas tears his eyes away from Dean’s mouth.

“On the bed,” he says, forgetting that Sam and Charlie are downstairs on the terrace and thus not in need of any chairs, and Dean looks startled.

“Uh. Okay.”

“Or the chairs,” Cas amends, though really, they’re the obvious choice. “I’m sorry, I forgot there were only two of us.”

He feels strangely disappointed by that part of the change in plans.

“Ah. Gotcha.” Dean hesitates, then awkwardly moves toward the table.

“The bed would be more comfortable,” Cas blurts out, and Dean quickly turns back around, eyes wide. “We always — before, when we — before I left, we often sat on the bed.”

Dean swallows.

“Uh. Yeah, we did. I guess — I mean, if — if you’re comfortable with that . . .”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Cas asks, confused. He and Dean haven’t seen each other, so what could have changed, to make him suddenly uncomfortable? Unless — “Are you not?”

Dean’s brows lift.

“No, I am, I just — I thought you might . . .”

Cas waits.

But then Dean sort of nods, and after a slight pause, slowly crawls onto the bed.

It’s not the bed at the castle, big enough for several people and covered in more soft pillows and throws than a single person could use at once, but over the last two months, it’s become _Cas’s,_ for better or for worse, and he can’t help it.

He likes how Dean looks on it.

“You gonna — set that down?”

Cas takes a breath.

“Yes. Sorry.”

He goes to the foot of the bed, carefully sliding the tray up, and then rounds the other side, climbing on.

For a moment, neither of them speak.

“Tea?” Cas finally remembers, unable to stop himself from staring. Dean is tense, fingers drumming restlessly against the knees of his crossed legs, and he jumps a little when Cas speaks.

“Oh, right, of course, I — I can get it, though, you don’t have to, uh — yeah.” Dean leans forward, reaching for the teapot, and Cas can’t quite help a frown.

Clearly, Dean _is_ uncomfortable.

Perhaps something has changed, after all.

Dean pours two cups, and Cas tries to take heart in the amount of milk and sugar he adds to Cas’s.

“Think that’s right,” Dean mumbles, holding it out, and Cas accepts it with a nod.

“Thank you.”

“Sure.”

Dean picks up his own cup, and they drink in silence. He looks troubled, and it makes Cas troubled, in return.

“It’s perfect,” he tries, and Dean’s gaze flicks to his, a small smile at last.

“Kinda hard to forget.”

Which — Cas appreciates that, but of all the things Cas would like for him to remember, the way Cas takes his tea and coffee is somewhat low on the list.

“How, um. How are things at the castle?”

Dean looks up.

“Oh. Uh. Good. They’re — they’re good.”

“Ah. That’s . . . good. And — Kate? And Pamela?”

“Oh — they’re, uh, they’re doin’ great.”

Cas nods slowly.

“Like you.”

“Huh?”

“You said you had been ‘great,’” Cas reminds him.

“Oh. Right. Yeah.”

“I’m glad,” Cas offers. “Although — are you really anemic?”

“What?”

“Sam said you were anemic. Because of the dungeons.”

Dean makes a face, lowering his cup.

“Sam was being a bitch, I’m fine.” He pauses, narrowing his eyes. “And Lucy could _not_ kick my ass, for the record.”

“Well — you never know,” Cas points out, and Dean looks offended.

“Uh, yes, I do. There’s no way.”

Cas takes another sip of tea, considering.

“You know what your problem is, Dean?” he eventually says, and Dean scowls.

“What?”

“You never wanted to hurt me. And — you wouldn’t want to hurt Lucy, either.”

“I — well, _no._ Of course not.”

Cas nods.

“And that is why, given the right circumstances — it’s possible Lucy _would_ ‘kick your ass.’”

Dean stares.

Cas shrugs and takes another sip of tea.

“Huh.” Dean studies him for a moment. “Is that, uh, is that why you told Samandriel you could have killed me?”

Cas immediately lowers his cup.

“I wouldn’t have,” he says, worried, and Dean’s lips quirk.

“So you’ve said.”

“I wouldn’t. Just-” Cas looks down. “I . . . I’ve had a lot of time to think, since I’ve been here. I was always — baffled, as to what you were so afraid of, but — it’s occurred to me that in some ways, you were right to be. You left me many opportunities. Were it something I wanted — I _could_ have done it.”

Dean nods slowly, absorbing that.

“So . . . you’re saying, ever since you got here, you’ve been thinking about all the times you could have killed me?”

Cas presses his lips together.

“ _No,_ ” he says sternly, and Dean furrows his brow. “No, that — the point is — I just — I realized I wasn’t helpless. And — I wanted him to know that.”

“Oh.” Dean still looks confused, and a little perturbed, but that’s fine.

Cas doesn’t really expect anyone to understand.

“I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

“About what?”

“The dungeon. Sam told me what you did, and I was — well. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Dean shakes his head.

“No. Don’t apologize. That — it wasn’t even close to being your fault. Honestly, Cas — _I_ should be the one apologizing. Should have done that — should have _actually_ let you go — a long time ago.”

Cas hasn’t cared to hear it from Anna, and he doesn’t care to hear it from Dean, now.

Anna should not have interfered, and Dean –

Dean should _never_ have let him go.

“You shouldn’t have been punished,” he says instead. “That wasn’t fair.”

Dean squints at him.

“Wasn’t it?”

“Why would it be?”

Dean just looks at him, sad.

“Cas. I was the one keeping you. I — I kept saying I didn’t, but — I had the power to let you go. And I’m the one that decided to wait.”

Cas is glad he did.

More than ever, he wishes Anna hadn’t interfered.

“Well, I wouldn’t have minded you waiting even longer. What I _did_ mind was hearing that you were sent to the dungeons.”

“It wasn’t a big deal-”

“But it could have been. For me, too. Your council, they issued their proclamations — but we expected them to come after me. I think you expected that, too, if you were to just — let me go.”

Dean hesitates.

“Yeah,” he admits. “I wanted — the plan was to pretend to spend a couple cycles together, you know — let them think that you _couldn’t_ have my heirs. And then — they wouldn’t care if I let you go. But I was going to. I wasn’t lying about that, Cas, I swear I was going to, I just — I wanted to make sure you’d be okay.”

Cas knows. Cas remembers Dean, promising he’d find away, promising he’d go to the Gardens _with_ Cas before he let him be sent there alone, remembers a small, selfish part of himself wishing it would come to that.

He remembers kissing Dean afterward, remembers Dean kissing him _back,_ remembers _I’ll find a way out_ and hating the very thought.

And looking at Dean, now, green eyes earnest and guilty, traces of sorrow in his face—

Cas thinks Anna was wrong.

Keeping Cas forever was the last thing on Dean’s mind.

“I know,” he says quietly. “And you did. I’m grateful for that.”

Dean’s expression twists.

“Cas — don’t be grateful. Not to me. Never to me.”

“Why not? Anna — she made a mistake, taking me, one that could have cost all of us. But — you fixed it. And the proclamation — the one about New Eden — you knew that was coming, didn’t you? That was the ‘good news’ you mentioned, in your letter. I assume you had a hand in it.”

Dean hesitates, then nods.

“Yeah. But that’s just-”

“And you were good to me.” Cas interrupts, soft. “Very good. Why wouldn’t I be grateful for that?”

But Dean’s shaking his head before he’s even finished, jaw tight.

“Cas, I was _shit_ to you.”

“Briefly, when you thought you had a reason to be. Which — that was something else I took for granted. You being afraid of me.”

Dean draws back slightly.

“What does that mean?”

Cas shrugs.

“It means people are ‘shit’ to me, now. Even my sister — oftentimes, it feels like she’s ‘shit’ to me, as well. She loves me, and I love her, so there’s room for forgiveness, but — at least you thought enough of me to feel threatened, Dean. You were only ever awful because you thought I was on equal footing. But now, here . . . honestly, I — I feel like less of a person than I ever have.”

Dean’s face falls.

“Cas . . .”

“The world — it’s much more complicated than I gave it credit for.” He shakes his head, gaze dropping to the duvet. “Maybe they’re right to treat me that way. I miss just — being. Without — without the politics, and constantly being told how wrong my life has been, and this — this pressure to get _better._ I don’t know how to do that. Everyone seems to think it means forgetting — that it means not caring about the things I care about. But I don’t want that.”

For a long moment, Dean doesn’t answer.

Eventually, Cas lifts his head, finally looks at him, afraid he’s spoken out of turn, that this is not what Dean was looking for with this visit, that such tedious confessions will deter him from ever coming again, if there was even a chance of that in the first place-

But Dean doesn’t look irritated, or uncomfortable.

Mostly, Dean just looks — _sad._

“I’m sorry,” he finally says, and Cas is puzzled by how much he seems to mean it.

“It’s not your fault.”

Dean swallows.

“I don’t know. Maybe it is. Maybe if I’d risked letting you go sooner-”

Cas shakes his head.

“I told you. I’m glad you didn’t.”

“You shouldn’t be.” Dean hesitates. “I just — I wanted you to be happy here. But — Cas, you . . . _are_ you?”

How could he be?

Most of the things that made him happy aren’t here.

“I’m happy to see you,” he says instead, because his unhappiness isn’t something he wants to discuss with Dean, especially not if it’s going to make him look so upset. “Thank you for coming. I didn’t say that, earlier, but — I am happy. I wanted to see you, very much.”

The troubled look melts into one of surprise, at that.

“Oh.”

“You said-” Cas pauses, that familiar shyness stalling the words. “That you missed me.”

Dean nods.

“I did. A lot.” Cas waits, a little guilty for his contrivance, but he can’t help himself. It felt very good to hear he was missed, whether it was Sam or Charlie or Dean saying it, and he wants to hear it again. “I’m really happy to see you, too, Cas. I thought — uh. I kinda thought you wouldn’t want to see me again.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to see you?” Cas asks, baffled. Hadn’t he told Dean, repeatedly, that he enjoyed his company? That he wished he could have more of it?

“Just . . . with everything that happened, and since you were free, now, it just seemed . . .”

“What?”

Dean shrugs, just looking at him.

“I don’t know. I figured you’d just — you’d wanna forget. Put it all behind you.”

Cas slumps a little.

“You said that. In your letter.”

Dean nods.

“Yeah. I guess — I don’t see how you couldn’t.”

“I don’t see how I could,” Cas counters, shaking his head. “I hated your letter, Dean. I liked that you thought well of me, at least, but — the rest of it — I hated it. I told you. Everyone wants me to forget. Everyone wants me to ‘put it behind me.’ But I don’t want that. I don’t — I don’t want to not see you again. And I don’t want you to _owe_ me anything, I want you to-”

He stops.

The truth is — he wants Dean to ask him to come back to the castle. He wants him to promise not to have heirs with any noblewomen, or to get married to any princesses, or to touch anyone besides Cas, ever again. He wants him to come to Cas each day, when all his other work is done, and he wants him to take him riding and work in the garden with him and have dinner with him and then, when each night is over, he wants kisses.

And he thinks, if Dean did that, if Dean promised all of that, Cas would let him stay, would give him more, because Dean _does_ give Cas things, things which Cas has treasured, and he would never want to always be the one that _took._

But — there’s a copy of the proclamations on his nightstand that say there _will_ be a noblewoman, and a house full of curious citizens who want there to be a princess instead, and though Dean is in his room, is sitting on the bed with him, sharing a pot of tea — it isn’t like it used to be.

It’s the wrong bed, in the wrong room, in the wrong city, awkward, heavy conversation between them, and unlike all the other times before, Cas has no reason to expect it to happen again.

Because things _have_ changed. Perhaps Cas hasn’t, perhaps the way he _feels_ hasn’t — but people aren’t the important things, are they? That’s what Anna’s been trying to tell him, all this time — what matters is all of the outside things, the ‘big picture’ that decides what you can have, and what you can’t.

And this — _Dean_ — is not something he can have.

“Cas?”

Cas shakes his head, shutting his eyes.

All those times. All the times he’s been longing for, the rides through the woods, the work in the garden, the meals shared, the closeness, later and later into the night — they were all a matter of circumstance, because some greater force decided Cas must be there, and thus, Dean must be there, too.

_A prisoner,_ they say he was. Even Dean seems to think that way, with all his talk of letting Cas go, of him being _free_ now, like he was trapped before.

And he was, but — he realizes now, sitting on that wrong bed, having the wrong conversation, staring down all the futures he _doesn’t_ want — that Dean was trapped, too.

Every moment he didn’t have to spend performing his duties, he was with Cas.

And without that obligation — without that pattern, that routine — Dean has had countless hours to fill.

There may not _be_ space for Cas, anymore.

Perhaps Winchester had no right, taking Cas away, keeping him like that — but it meant Dean was kept, too, for a time, and in a way — Cas was the one who got to keep him.

In a way, they were bound.

Cas can’t help himself.

He wishes they still were.

“Cas, what’s wrong?” Cas startles as Dean’s hand closes over one of his, warm and solid, a familiar sensation he wants to cling to. When he opens his eyes, he finds Dean leaning toward him, concern etched across his features. “What do you want?”

“I just — I want-” He stops, taking a deep breath. He can’t _have_ what he wants. He’s always known that.

What is the point of asking?

“Anything,” Dean says quickly, and then he’s squeezing Cas’s hand, shifting onto his knees, shifting closer. “Anything you want, Cas, I told you. It’s yours.”

It’s a reckless promise to make, and Cas thinks Dean should just be grateful Cas would never try to hold him to that.

“Will you kiss me?” he asks, merciful, in his own way, and Dean’s grip slackens, eyes going wide with shock.

And then-

There’s a metallic sort of scrabbling sound from the door, and a few moments after they both turn to look at it, startled-

It swings open with a _bang,_ and Anna storms into the room.

When Dean was seventeen, he participated in a friendly competition at the Southern border, and he fought dozens of soldiers over the course of a week, soldiers who were older and frequently bigger, with years more training under their belts.

Even with the naive bravado of youth, he’d been intimidated.

And the soldier that had scared him most of all? An alpha captain in the Southern army, dubbed The Knight of Hell, twice his age and with hair like the flames tavern gossip liked to say she was birthed from.

She wielded two swords like another set of arms, and the only reason Dean didn’t end up having to fight her was because she maimed her opponent in the match before theirs and was promptly disqualified.

He remembers meeting her the morning of, remembers a throwing knife embedded in the wall just behind his ear, the coldest smile he’s ever seen in his life on Abaddon’s face.

_You’ll need to be faster than that, Little Prince._

And then she’d laughed, some terrifying sound of pure, mad delight, and Dean had nearly lost the match right after, so spooked was he.

Anyway, the redhead bursting into the room, yanking her skirts up and whipping out a dagger with murder in her eyes is kind of giving him flashbacks.

Dean quickly shoves Cas onto his back, ignoring the unhappy grunt, and scrambles in front of him, snatching up the teapot.

“Put the knife down,” he snarls, just as the woman starts forward, dagger raised.

“Get away from my brother,” she snaps back, and Dean prepares to draw back, to hurl the teapot at her, to lunge forward and disarm her-

But then the words sink in

He lowers the teapot.

“Wait, are you-”

“My sister,” Cas growls, sitting up. “Anna, put the knife down.”

“Your door was _locked,_ Cas!”

“Yes, it _was._ ” He scrambles forward, nudging past Dean. “Now _go_ _away —_ and lock it behind you. _”_

Her brows lift.

“What, and leave you in here with _him_? Why is he even here in the first place? Why is he in your _room_? With the _door_ locked?”

Cas huffs.

“So _you_ wouldn’t come in.”

Her mouth flattens, though she at least lets the dagger fall to her side.

“Everyone else is downstairs on the terrace. Even _Samandriel._ What could you possibly need to be alone with him for?”

Cas lifts his chin.

“I don’t think you want to know, Anna.”

And just like that, Dean forgets all about the dagger and traumatic memories of scary southern alpha captains, because two seconds before Anna came in, Cas was being sad and lost and Dean was kind of starting to freak out, except then Cas had turned and pinned that endless, blue-eyed gaze on him and asked-

“Cas. May I have a word with you in the hallway?” Anna grits out, and Dean shakes himself. Potential kissing aside, there’s no way that’s what Cas meant.

“No, but you can go have a word with yourself in the hallway. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Anna’s mouth falls open.

Then she shuts it, eyes hard.

“Whether you respect me — or yourself, for that matter — or not, you know perfectly well men are not allowed to spend the night at Mills Park.”

Cas hesitates.

“He’s not a man, he’s the Prince of Winchester. He’s — entitled.”

“Yes, he does seem to think he’s entitled to a lot of things, but as I’m sure he’ll be shocked to know, you and your bed are not among them.” She turns, fixing Dean with a brittle smile. “Your highness. Cas and I are needed in the kitchen to help prepare dinner. I’m sure you understand.”

“Uh,” he starts, flicking an uncertain glance toward Cas. He’s sure as hell not going to overstay his welcome, but as much as he doesn’t want to rock the boat, it sounds kind of like Cas _does_ still want him here, and if that’s the case-

Dean’s not about to _leave_ him.

“I don’t recall having a dinner shift any time soon, least of all tonight,” Cas interjects, even. “But if _you_ do, I’m sure I don’t want to keep you.”

She huffs.

“Cas.”

“ _Anna._ ”

“He can’t stay.”

“Perhaps not the night,” Cas concedes, and honestly, Dean’s not sure how to feel about the implied invitation there. “But the sun’s not even down. We have a few hours.”

“No, you _don’t._ Even if you don’t help make dinner, you still have to _eat_ it.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’m sure _Dean_ is.”

Cas hesitates, throwing him an unhappy glance, and a chill goes down Dean’s spine.

“I already ate,” he quickly lies, and Cas straightens.

“There. It’s settled then.”

Anna glares at him, and Cas glares back, and Dean feels very, very uncomfortable.

“Fine,” she spits. “Then I’m happy to sit down and join you.”

And with that, she marches over to the table and drops onto one of the chairs, setting her dagger down with a pointed look at Cas.

Cas looks back at her like _he_ might be about to throw a teapot, and as much as Dean doesn’t want to leave him — as much as he kind of has some new questions, ones that’ll probably be keeping him up tonight — he’s starting to wonder if his presence here is really helping.

“Weren’t you attending to a matter at the print shop?”

“I meant to, but there wasn’t one, fortunately. Billie must have misunderstood.”

“Perhaps you should go back and check again.”

Anna’s lips purse, but Cas just scowls right back, fists clenched as he stares her down. Dean reaches out, unable to stop himself, lightly touching Cas’s shoulder, and though he thinks he hears Anna _growl_ as soon as his fingers make contact, he decides to ignore her.

“Cas,” he says quietly. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go, for now?”

Cas immediately slumps, turning toward Dean with a pained expression.

“Please don’t leave me.”

Both the words and the voice they’re uttered in tug at some deep, unnamed thing within, and a part of Dean wants to forcibly remove Anna from the room altogether and just barricade the pair of them in here for the rest of the night — or week, or month — rules be damned.

He shoves it down.

“I’m not. Not for good, anyway, I — I can come back in the morning. First thing, as soon as I’m allowed.”

Cas gives him a searching look.

“You can?”

“Yeah. I’m — I’m here for three days, actually.”

“Three days,” Cas repeats, looking torn. “And — what other business do you have, here?”

Dean blinks, surprised.

“I don’t? My only business here is — well, you.”

Hope blossoms in Cas’s face, so bright and sweet Dean feels his own breath catch.

“I — I have to work, tomorrow, but — will you meet me here, after?”

“Of course,” Dean answers immediately. “If that’s what you want.”

“Yes. Yes, it is. And — will you come have coffee with me, in the morning?

“Sure.” Dean doesn’t even care if it’s before the sun is up.

“And will you—“ Cas abruptly stops, casting an uneasy glance toward Anna. “Alright. Then — tomorrow morning. And after work.”

Dean nods, not quite able to stop himself from squeezing Cas’s shoulder.

He swears Cas leans into it.

“Just let me know when, Cas.”

“I have my coffee at six. And I’ll be back here by four.”

Dean nods.

“Then I’ll be waiting.”

Cas just looks at him for a moment.

And then at last, his shoulders relax.

“Alright,” he says again, voice strangely small. “I . . . I suppose I’ll see you out, then.”

Anna starts to stand.

“Is that really nec-”

“Shut up, Anna,” Cas mutters, and then he slides off the bed, reaching back to offer Dean a hand.

Dean doesn’t spare her a second glance before he takes it, squeezing tight on instinct.

Cas gives him a grateful look, and squeezes back just as tightly.

And then he hastily pulls Dean to the door and through it, yanking it shut behind them.

“Anna’s time outside of New Eden has made her — immeasurably difficult,” Cas mumbles, grip firm as he leads Dean back down the hallway. “If you can distract her into being amused, she’s very good company, but she’s almost never amused, anymore. It’s vexing.”

“Oh.” Dean has no idea what to say to that, though he’s careful not to let go of Cas’s hand. “Well. You, uh. You guys have had a lot of stuff happening. She’s probably just — stressed.”

Cas huffs, pulling him a little closer when they make it to the top of the stairs, and even though a part of Dean thinks holding hands while trying to descend a flight of stairs is a recipe for disaster, he’s game if Cas is.

“She would be less stressed if she would stop concerning herself with what I do, or feel, or want. I’m — I’m helpless, here. She has nothing to fear.”

“I hope not, but — you’re her baby brother, Cas. Of course she’s worried. And you — you seem — well, you seem stressed, too. Maybe she’s right to be?”

Cas stops short, and Dean nearly trips over the step.

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t side with her.” Cas takes a deep breath, turning to face him, fearful and warning all at once. “I can’t — I don’t want to hear that from you.”

“Okay,” Dean says quickly. “I won’t. I — I’m on your side, Cas. Always.”

Cas swallows, eyes flicking between Dean’s for a moment.

“Promise,” he says. “Perhaps it’s useless, but — promise me, anyway. That you’ll listen to me. And — you’ll believe me.”

Dean quickly nods.

“I promise.”

Cas lets out a quiet breath.

“Thank you.”

And then he starts down the last few steps, gently tugging Dean along with him.

Cas looks a little hurt when Dean takes back his hand at the doors to the terrace, but Cas has a practical fiance out there and even if Dean knows it doesn’t mean anything, that it’s just a thing Cas does sometimes, the other guy might not.

It’s just better not to cause trouble.

Still, it’s hard to let go, and it’s even harder to leave, to watch Sam and Charlie hug him goodbye and climb into the carriage, shutting the door behind them in a pointed effort to give them a moment. He can’t shake the feeling that Cas should be climbing in with them, that he should be there for dinner at Bobby’s and then, when it’s done and they’re tired and Charlie’s grumbling for anything even remotely resembling a bed, Dean should be able to lead him back to the room he always stays in and tuck him into bed, crawling in right after him.

And the way Cas _looks_ at him, when they say good night — he doesn’t ask, but Dean swears the question is there in his eyes again, swears he’s waiting for it anyway, and god, Dean wants to give in, to that and more, to just whisk him away in the carriage and take his chances with dagger-wielding redheads and women with umbrella swords and whatever the hell else Mills Park is housing.

But not two hours ago, Cas accepted pink chrysanthemums from someone else, and kissing him, earlier or now, just-

It wouldn’t be right.

So Dean settles for a close, brief hug, breathing in Cas’s scent one final time for the evening, and then -

Then he gets in the carriage and gives the signal for them to drive away.

“You ruin everything,” Cas accuses, the moment he’s back in his room.

“And you are a petulant _child_ with an unhealthy attachment to a man who held you captive.”

Cas ignores that.

“He’s leaving in a matter of days. I — I might never see him again, Anna. This may be all I get. And yet, _once again_ , you’re intent on _stealing_ it.”

“I’m intent on _protecting_ you, Cas.”

“I don’t need protection from Dean.”

“If I hadn’t come in when I had-”

“Then I’m sure I would be very happy right now, indeed,” he interrupts spitefully, though it’s entirely possible Dean would _not_ have kissed him. It’s been two months, since that last night.

That may not be something Dean wants anymore.

Anna throws up her hands.

“Suppose that’s true. And what about later? When he’s gone, and you’ve let him take even more? You’ll be even less happy than before he came. Which — he should not have. This is wrong.”

“I don’t want to hear you talk about my happiness, Anna. You say you want it for me, but you do everything you can to stop me from having it. You say you want me to have _choices,_ but you won’t let me make any.”

“That is not true,” she protests. “When have I stopped you from doing anything, apart from where Dean is concerned?”

“Does it matter?” he counters. “I’m not sure my happiness _occurs_ apart from where Dean is concerned.”

“Seriously?” Cas just stares back at her, and she sighs. “Cas. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“And neither do you. You _ran,_ Anna. You were unhappy, and you _ran._ You would have been mated years ago if not for the tradition, and Mother and Father would have said that was best for you. If you’d tried to get out of it, you would have been told _you_ didn’t know what _you_ were saying. How are you any different? Perhaps you’re offering more than one choice, but you’re still trying to be the authority on which ones are or aren’t right.”

Anna takes a deep breath.

“Cas. That’s different. Most people — they’re not in your situation. This isn’t me, making up some arbitrary rule to control you — ask _anyone_ in Winchester, and they’ll say this is wrong. You can’t — you can’t be with someone who kept you prisoner.”

“That wasn’t his choice. And you have my letters. He was kind to me.”

She looks down, a bitter twist to her lips.

“And you especially can’t be with someone who provided the only kindness you received when you were vulnerable.”

“That is an absurd rule.”

“It’s not. Your life was _terrible,_ and then someone came along and offered you some good. That’s not love, Cas.”

“Perhaps not, but that’s not what _happened.”_

“That is exactly what happened, but by all means, tell me how this is different.”

Cas frowns at her.

And then he shakes his head.

“No. You won’t listen, and you’ll tell me I’m wrong.”

“Because you _are_ -”

“I love you, Anna. I would never want to hurt you. But if you interfere with Dean’s visit, in any way — I _will_ fight back.”

She stops, staring.

“You’re . . . threatening me?”

“I have very little power at my disposal. I have very little, in general. I’m not going to let you take any more of it away, whether you think it’s ‘for the best’ or not.”

She studies him for a long moment, calculating.

“You won’t hurt me,” she finally says, and he hates how _sure_ she sounds, almost as much as he hates that she’s right.

“Then I’ll run. You can’t keep me here by force. You’re not my father, or my alpha. You’re not allowed, and you _know_ it. And if you try — then you’re no better than our parents. Than the council. Than every law you stand in your parlor and decry as insufficient. You will be denying me what you yourself have had the advantage of. And it will _not_ be just.”

She’s quiet again, just looking at him, frustration evident.

Cas has no pity for it.

Eventually, she offers him a terse nod, standing.

“There are always things we must learn for ourselves,” she mutters, then clears her throat. “Three days, you said? And then he’s leaving?”

Cas resents the reminder, but he inclines his head.

“Yes.”

“Fine. You’re right, Cas. It’s your choice. I hope you don’t regret it.”

“I won’t.”

Anna just rolls her eyes, snatching her dagger off the table. She pauses with a hand in her skirt, though, frowning at the bed.

“Seriously? He brought you _flowers_?”

Cas wishes she would just _go._

“If you must know, _Samandriel_ brought me flowers. Which I appreciate, though I’m not convinced you _won’t_ try and sell me off to him.”

“For God’s sake, Cas. As you yourself just pointed out, I _can’t_ sell you. Officially, no one in Winchester can be sold, though God knows there are plenty of ways around that. But Samandriel is young, and he’s energetic, and he’s _happy._ And what’s more, he _adores_ you.”

“Well, I don’t adore him,” Cas mumbles, and Anna lifts her brows.

“So? He’s not there for you to adore, Cas. He’s there to be a friend, to help you have _fun,_ and he’s there to remind you that you _are_ beautiful and clever and wonderful, and that many, many people are going to think so . So many that the odds you _wouldn’t_ adore one of them in return are low.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Of course you don’t,” she sighs. “Almost no one has treated you like it. But you’re not a workhorse, or a broodmare, or any other kind of — of equine tool, Cas. You’re a person, one with _value,_ by your own merits. You have _options._ And you _did_ have a good life at the castle. You had friends. You were treated very well, by the sounds of it. But what I want you to understand is that those aren’t things just generously given to you, out of the goodness of their hearts; they’re not really a reflection of the people who gave them, at all.” She shakes her head. “No, I have no doubt Sam and Charlie and that stupid Prince are still darkening our doors because those are things they thought you’d _earned_. By being _you,_ because you _are_ wonderful. And I want you to realize that all of that, everything you think they gave you — you can have it elsewhere, from people who won’t keep you like a possession.”

Cas looks down, eyes stinging.

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you say nice things, if you have good intentions. You — you’re being cruel, Anna. Why won’t you let me have this? Dean might never come back after this. Sam and Charlie will forget me in time, too. I — I hardly have anything left. You can try and teach me all the lessons you want when I’ve finished losing it, but please — _please,_ Anna. Just — let me have this much. Just for now.”

There’s a heavy silence.

“I will, Cas,” she says quietly. “And I know you’re going to take it, whether I let you or not. Because it — it _is_ your choice. And if it’s the wrong one, like I think it is — then I’ll be here, and I’ll help you. I won’t leave you behind again.”

He shuts his eyes.

“Please go. I want to be alone.”

“Alright. But — if you need anything-”

“I don’t. Not from you.”

For a moment, she says nothing.

And then:

“I see.” She takes a deep breath. “Good night, then.”

And even though he knows he should, even though he thinks he understands, at least on some level, what she’s trying to do-

He can’t quite bring himself to say it back.

“He’s different.”

Sam and Charlie both look at him, though Charlie’s lids are at half-mast, teacup tilting perilously in her swaying hand.

“Don’t you think?” he continues, looking between them.

“What do you mean?” Sam asks.

Dean shrugs.

“He’s — I mean, it’s not — it’s just.” He sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Before he left, he seemed — I don’t know, peaceful. You’d just sit with him, and he — I know he couldn’t have been, not the way things were, and that stupid kid even said — but he almost seemed _happy_ . And I thought — he’s gotta be doing even better here, with his sister, right? But — he’s _not_ . H e’s tense, and he’s sad, and he just — I barely got to spend an hour with him, but sometimes, he look ed so fucking _tired,_ and scared, and i t — he’s just adjusting still, right? He had a hard time when he came to Lawrence, and I know part of that was me torturing him , but part of it — these things _always_ take time, don’t they?”

_I thought I told you to be good to him. Do you know how_ sad _he was when_ _he_ _first got here?_

Which, fine, as much as it stung, as much as Dean hated the kid’s nerve, throwing that at him from the steps while they waited for Cas, like Samandriel was the only one who had a right to be there in the first place — he understood. Cas was in survival mode, at the castle, and as soon as he realized he was free-

Something probably broke, and all of it, everything he’d been through, finally caught up to him.

But after two months — shouldn’t he be doing better? Dean remembers him struggling at the castle, but even when Dean was being shitty, Cas was still — he wasn’t quite so . . .

“That’s . . . hard to say, Dean. The, um. The circumstances are all kind of weird.”

Dean nods. Another thing that’s his fault. If he’d sent Cas to Anna the first time a letter came, saying ‘fuck the consequences’—

Maybe Cas would be a lot better off, now.

Unless, of course . . .

“Do you think it’s me?” he makes himself ask, hating the idea. A part of him thinks there’s no fucking way he can leave in three days, if Cas is really like this all the time now, if he’s _not_ that happy here, if he’s somehow not getting what he needs — but then there’s that other part, the part that wonders if _do you know how sad he was when he got here_ means he _is_ doing better, means what Dean saw tonight was just . . .

Dean. Triggering some kind of — of relapse, and bringing back the worst.

In which case — maybe coming was a mistake.

“What? What do you mean?”

Dean shrugs.

“Seeing me again. Maybe it’s — setting him back.”

“Dude, _no._ He was thrilled to see you. I mean — look at the way he hugged you.”

“Yup,” Charlie mumbles sleepily. “Swear he was gonna let you sink your teeth right into him, right there in the dri-”

Sam elbows her, and Dean blinks, confused.

“Huh?”

“Anyway, that’s not important. The important thing is — he was sad when we first visited, too. But — I could be wrong, but I thought he cheered up, as the days passed. And Dean — he was _desperate_ for us to bring you here. He wanted to see you so badly.”

“I don’t know, Sam-”

“Didn’t you see him in the kitchen? He — he _lit up_ when he realized he was going to get you to himself. I’m surprised he bothered finishing the tea, Dean.”

Dean shakes his head.

“But when we got up there — it — it was awkward, and then he was sad, and then he said all this stuff about being here — that he felt like less of a person than he ever had. That people are shit to him. And then — he — before Anna came in, he — he asked me to kiss him.”

Charlie sits up all the way at that, eyeing him with interest.

“Did you?”

“Dude, of _course_ not. He’s practically engaged to someone else — although _that_ worries me, too, because he _doesn’t_ seem happy, and I don’t even know if two months is enough time to adjust enough to make a decision like that _—_ and anyway, Anna came in right after. But — that’s really fucked up, isn’t it? Telling me he’s sad and then — wanting me to kiss him? I think — fuck. I think he’s struggling, and I think — I’m not sure me being here didn’t just confuse him more.”

Sam hesitates.

“You — you’re not wrong. I do think he’s, um, having a hard time, but — Dean, he kissed you before he left, too.”

“Right, and then he started courtship with someone else. He even reassured the kid before we left the kitchen, Sam. And since I don’t think Cas is the type to play around — look, something’s wrong. I just — I don’t know how to fix it. Or if I even can.”

“You can,” Sam says hastily. “Just — you’re right. It’s been two months. You need to — to spend time with him, talk to him, see where he’s really at. And as for the _courtship_ -”

“Ugh,” Charlie mutters.

“I don’t think it _has_ been enough time. Maybe _you_ didn’t confuse him — maybe Alfie did. Or his sister. I mean — it’s way too soon to get engaged, especially since he always thought he couldn’t. What if Cas thinks he _has_ to? That that’s his only option?”

Dean frowns.

“I told him before he left. The whole point of sending him to Anna was so he _would_ have options.”

“Right, but he’s never had them before. Maybe he hasn’t internalized it, yet. Maybe he doesn’t even know what it really means, to have them. Hasn’t he always just been pushed in whatever direction someone wants him to go?”

“Well, yeah, Sam. It’s why I’m not one of his options, because I’m one of the people that pushed.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah, _are_ you?” Charlie adds. “Like, you were a total goose the last several months. If Cas hadn’t kissed you first, you probably never would have had the nerve.”

Dean scowls.

“That — that is not relevant, here.”

“Ohh, yes it is,” she says cheerfully, swishing her tea in the cup, considerably more awake than she had been. “Cas isn’t the type to ask for things, and _you’re_ not the type to push, b ut what does he do less than an hour after he sees you again? Ask you for something he _knows_ you don’t expect from him.”

“ _Does_ he know that?” Dean protests. “Hell, does he even understand kissing in the first pl-”

“Oh, he does,” Charlie assures him. “He asked us a _bunch_ of questions about it.”

“ _What_? When?”

“After the festival,” Sam explains kindly. “He wanted to kiss you again, but he wasn’t sure you would get anything out of it, or if it was even okay to try.”

Dean’s never blushed so hard or fast in his _life._

“I — Jesus Christ, I thought you guys sat up there talking about books and eating too much cake! What, did you tell him about the birds and the bees, too?”

Charlie frowns.

“No, but we probably should have. Not that either of us would be much help on the subject of ‘how to get dick,’ much less how to get it from _you._ ”

“ _Charlie,_ ” Dean sputters, shrinking back into the armchair, horrified. “I — I’m not — Cas doesn’t even _want_ my-”

“Anyway,” Sam interrupts. “That’s kind of not the point. The point is — Cas wanted to kiss you for a long time, but he was always afraid _you_ didn’t want that. He definitely didn’t think you expected it.”

“Right,” Charlie agrees. “So — if he’s asking for it now? He’s asking for him. Not you.”

Dean hesitates.

“But — I’m — and things are — and what about the _kid_?”

“Great question,” Sam agrees thoughtfully, then gives Dean a Look. “Why don’t you _ask_ him?”

“Yeah, sure, and what am I supposed to _say_ ? ‘Hey, buddy, I noticed you’re halfway to the altar with a guy you barely know, and also you wanted to kiss me last night, or you thought you did, are you sure you’re not suffering a mental break or something and shouldn’t maybe just take things easy for a bit?’” He snorts. “Not only will that make _me_ sound crazy, he’ll probably tell me to get out.”

Sam makes a face.

“Then don’t _say_ that, Dean. Just — tell him, “Congratulations on the courtship. Samandriel’s a lucky guy. Tell me about him.’”

Dean suddenly feels a little ill.

“Uh. I don’t think I can.”

“Goose,” Charlie murmurs, and then leans forward, reaching for the teapot. “Personally, I think you should just kiss him.”

Dean scowls.

“I can’t do that. Even if all the stupid flower bullshit hadn’t happened — that’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to make sure he’s doing okay, that he’s got everything he needs, that he — that he gets to say goodbye to me.”

“Right, sure — but _wait —_ oh my _gosh_ , what if what he needs is _kisses_ ? From a handsome prince who’s madly in love with him? Whatever will you do _then_?”

Sam makes a shit attempt at covering a snort with a cough, and Dean groans, dropping his head back.

“You’re both useless.”

“Oh, damn, I didn’t realize it was contagious,” she immediately retorts, and Dean huffs.

He _hates_ a sleep-deprived Charlie.

“Look, I’m not kissing him. I swear to God, he looked like he was about to cry when he asked for that. The last thing he needs is me confusing him even more.”

She and Sam exchange looks, and then she sighs.

“Your move, Sasquatch. I didn’t get enough sleep for this.”

“We can tell,” Dean mutters, and she rolls her eyes.

Of course, Sam just straightens up, turning fully toward Dean, gaze open and intent in a way that guarantees Dean is about to get his ass Earnestly Advised.

“Look. Go see him. Talk to him. _Listen._ No one has to do anything, or decide anything. Just . . . spend time with him like you used to. How does that sound?”

It sounds — well, really nice, in some ways — Dean knew he’d miss Cas, when he finally left, but he didn’t realize just how much of his life Cas made up, or how fucking _empty_ it would be once he was gone — but a part of him still worries that it’s _not_ the best thing for him.

On the other hand — Cas had _asked_ for him to come back, and then, on the stairs—

_Promise me, anyway. That you’ll listen to me. And you’ll believe me._

Dean’s never been one to break his promises, not if he can help it.

“Yeah.” He clears his throat, rubbing his face. “Yeah, that — that sounds good. I should get to bed, though. He wants me there at six.”

Charlie squints.

“Wait. You already made plans?”

“Yeah?”

“Why the _hell_ are we still having this conversation, then?” she demands. “Ugh. I’m going to bed.”

She stands with a huff, setting her cup down on the tray.

“And Dean?” she says, pointing a finger at him. “If he asks you to kiss him again — you better _do_ it.”

“But-”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Sam agrees. “Although, it’d be better if you just told him how you feel.”

Dean gapes.

“ _Dude._ I’m not doing that.”

“I know,” Sam says, and he sounds _so_ disappointed, Dean doesn’t even know what to say to that.

So instead, he just stands up and follows Charlie out of the room.

Clearly, everybody here needs some goddamn _sleep._


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: references to past abuse (details in the notes), dark humor referencing non-con (details in the notes), mild erotic content, please let me know if I forgot anything.

“Cas. What are you doing?”

Anna’s still in her dressing gown, looking tired and disgruntled, and Lucy hovers anxiously behind her, hands clasped across her stomach.

Around them, the rest of the morning shift continue going about their business, though they spare several interested glances, and Cas is well-aware they’re listening.

“I told you, Anna, he’s making a _pie_! I think it’s for the prince! The _bad_ one!”

“They’re both very nice,” Cas protests, though he is undeniably partial to ‘the bad one.’ “And yes, Lucy is correct. I’m making a pie for Dean.”

Upset as he was, last night, the knowledge that Dean had not only come to see him, but apparently would have no other business besides Cas for the next three days, with a promise to be here for coffee at six this morning –

Well, even if Cas is fairly certain there will be no more kisses, based on Dean’s reaction, he’s never been one to be greedy.

And while he doubts the mediocre breakfast he prepared for Sam and Charlie was a _strong_ motivator for their return . . . Dean loves pie much more than the other two love breakfast, and the last time, he’d said Cas’s had been the best he’d ever had.

It can’t _hurt._

“Cas. Really?”

“I thought we had agreed to leave me be,” he reminds her, though he can’t muster much bite. He has to work, but other than that, he’ll get to spend the day with Dean, and if Dean really has nothing else to do, he might get to have tomorrow, too, and perhaps even the day after, and while a part of him is still terrified of what happens when Dean _does_ finally leave -

He feels _good._ He has something to look forward to, and he has a pie to make — something he can _do —_ and he’s determined to properly treasure that, this time.

“But you can’t _make him a pie,_ ” Lucy cries, distraught.

“Oh, but I can,” Cas insists, gleefully rolling out the dough. “He loves pie. The last one I made him made him cry.”

And perhaps that’s not necessarily a good thing, at least not on the surface, but Cas will always remember that moment in the garden, will always remember the way Dean looked at him, the way Dean’s cheek felt beneath his fingertips, and whatever anyone else thinks-

It _was_ good.

And, like all of the other moments there at the castle — it’s his.

“You made him a pie _before_?” Anna says, incredulous, and Cas nods.

“Yes.” He pauses. “Twice, actually. I didn’t tell you in my letter, because I didn’t want you to be upset, but — he threw the first one on the floor since he thought it was poisoned. But Dean — he’s wonderful company, Anna, when he’s not afraid of you, and he did _so many_ things for me — which I _did_ tell you in my letter — and I wanted to do something for him. So I did. And I would have done it many more times, if you had just left me there. And _now_ — now, because I am a free man, entirely capable of making my own choices-” He firmly presses down, rolling the pin along, and smiles very nicely at her. “I’m making him another one.”

Anna’s quiet for a moment.

“It’s too early for this,” he thinks he hears her mutter, and then she clears her throat. “What’s this about — being afraid of you?”

Cas blinks, startled.

“Ah.” Cas hadn’t told her that, either, again not wanting her to be upset. Now, however, Anna has upset him, thoroughly and completely, on a near daily basis, and he can’t quite bring himself to care. “The first two months, he thought I was planning to kill him.”

“He _what_?”

“I, too, thought it was ludicrous at the time, but — in retrospect, I could have. Without knowing me, he was right to be afraid. I’m not sure _you_ wouldn’t have tried it,” he adds, a little reproachful, and she huffs.

“With good reason.”

“No. He wouldn’t have touched you, either.” Fortunately. “I’m not sure what excuse he would have made, but he would have made one. Dean was . . . extremely troubled, by what his council wanted him to do — as he is by many things. Actually — Sam is rather sensitive, as well,” he adds, frowning. “Perhaps it’s something to do with how they raise princes.”

“That ridiculous hair,” he hears Lucy mumble, and he smiles.

“I think Sam looks very nice.”

“I think you may have finally lost it,” Anna interjects, then sighs. “Alright. So, he was — for some reason — terrified of the omega he’d casually abducted and locked up. That seems stupid, but — entirely fair, I suppose.”

Cas sighs right back.

“Better than stupid and _un_ fair,” he murmurs, and she falls silent.

There’s a couple of muffled giggles from around them, and when Cas glances up on reflex, he swears he catches his _sister’s_ lips twitch.

“You have a commission to finish, today, do you not? I hate to think I disturbed your rest,” he tries, and notes another twitch with interest.

“You know what?” she says pleasantly. “I think you _have_ lost it. I haven’t seen you this cheerful and obnoxious since you got here.”

“Probably because a handsome prince is waking up early to come have coffee with him,” one of the girls says under her breath, and Anna scowls.

“ _Please_ don’t encourage him. He’s incurably contrary, as it is.”

“I’m never contrary,” Cas protests. “I always do what I’m told.”

“No, you always do what you think you can get away with, which up to now has been sadly little,” she counters. “And may I remind you all that that ‘handsome prince’ _locked him up_.”

“Yes, but _look_ at him, Anna. I wouldn’t mind him locking _me_ up, and I spent ten months chained to a bed in my mother-in-law’s attic.”

“But Susan, your mother-in-law wasn’t forcing herself on you,” one of the girls whispers, still perfectly audible throughout the kitchen, and Susan giggles.

“If she looked like Prince Dean, she wouldn’t have had to.”

“ _Susan,”_ Anna chokes out , horrified. _"_ That’s nothing to laugh about. Whether he’s handsome or not-”

“He is,” another girl supplies helpfully, and Anna glares.

“Has _nothing_ to do with the issue of force. We all know that.”

Susan shrugs, though she looks vaguely abashed.

“Of course. I was just speaking for myself, but — I did so out of turn. Sorry, everyone.”

There’s a chorus of hums.

“As Miss Talbot always says, ‘you can laugh or you can cry, but you cannot change what’s happened, so you may as well laugh,’” Meredith offers. “We know you didn’t mean anything bad by it.”

“Though you might apologize to Castiel,” Elizabeth points out, soft, and the room goes quiet.

He looks up, disconcerted to find everyone’s eyes on him.

“Oh.” Susan clears her throat. “I — I forgot, on account of your making him a pie. I beg your pardon, Castiel.”

Cas hesitates. Unsettling though it is to hear them express admiration for Dean’s handsomeness, he’s not blind to it, and he doesn’t expect anyone else to be.

Certainly, he doesn’t know why they’d apologize to _him_ for noticing.

“It’s fine. I know I can’t be the only one to note his appeal,” he acknowledges, though he wouldn’t deny that he wishes he were.

Anna brings a palm to her forehead.

“Cas,” she says tiredly. “That’s not what she’s apologizing for.”

“Oh.” He glances around awkwardly, at a loss. “Well — whatever it is, I’m sure it’s fine?”

Susan looks uncomfortable.

“Just. In case — even if at the end, you, um, you wanted to be making him pies, and such, I’m sure at the beginning, it was — it must have been frightening.”

Cas tilts his head.

“I was afraid, yes. But — as I keep telling _Anna_ — Dean is a good man. I wasn’t frightened for long.”

“Oh. That’s good.” Susan looks relieved, and strangely curious. “Then — would you mind my asking-”

“Cas,” Anna interrupts, shifting closer to him, then says in a low tone. “They all think he must have forced himself on you.”

Cas makes a face, setting down the rolling pin.

“I thought I told you-”

“ _Yes,_ you told _me,_ but you didn’t tell the papers or anyone else, so _yes,_ that is what everyone thinks!”

“Then why didn’t you _correct_ them?”

She throws up her hands.

“Because you didn’t tell me I could! That’s _personal,_ and what’s more, I don’t share anything you don’t share yourself. You didn't even want to talk about him in the interview, Cas. Somehow I didn’t think you would appreciate it if I shared on your behalf.”

“Oh.” Cas was under the impression that he was discussed rather freely and openly, among the general public, and he didn’t imagine Anna to be any different. “Well, he didn’t,” he says, addressing the rest of the room. “In fact, I had to work very, very hard for the kisses I _did_ manage to g-”

“ _Anyway._ Can we all please finish our respective tasks and stop talking about Prince Dean?”

“But I want to hear about the kisses,” Susan complains. “I never hear about any kisses. Do princes do it differently?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Cas says honestly, though a sharp look from Anna has him retrieving his rolling pin. He _does_ want the pie to be ready on time. “I haven’t kissed anyone else.”

There’s a chorus of interested noises.

“But what about poor Alfie? Lucy said he brought you pink chrysanthemums last night. Are you really holding out on him?”

“What?” Anna straightens up. “Cas doesn’t owe anyone kisses, whether they bring him flowers or not.”

They exchange amused looks.

“Well, he doesn’t _owe_ them, but I’d think he’d want them, if he wanted those flowers.”

“Alfie’s so young, though,” Meredith muses. “Maybe _he’s_ holding out on Castiel? They do get more and more old-fashioned, the further North you go.”

“I’m not sure it’s appropriate for Cas to be kissing _anyone,_ right now,” Anna protests, and for some reason, everyone laughs.

“Case in point. Anyway — Cas, tell us about kissing the prince!”

“Cas, _don’t_.”

“Ah, she’s adorable when she gets like this.”

“I am not, and I mean it, Cas, _don’t_.”

Cas considers this for a moment, unable to stop himself from thinking back, to both occasions, to the difference between Dean’s heated skin pressed to his, the mattress soft underneath him, the sensation of touch overwhelming. He thinks he liked the second kiss better, the one he took for himself, but then he wonders about the first kiss, how it would be if he was prepared for it this time, if he wasn’t so afraid of what might follow-

“Alright, that’s enough,” Anna snaps, clapping her hands. “Cas is going to make his pie, because he _is_ contrary, and since I’m up, anyway, I’m happy to help the rest of you where needed.”

There’s a few delighted exclamations, and then Anna is being directed to fetch bowls and haul pots and fill things with water, and Cas happily returns to his dough, undeniably warmed by the memories.

Perhaps things have changed, and perhaps Dean _isn’t_ interested in kissing him.

But then again -

Cas still has three days to change his mind, doesn’t he?

To Dean’s immense relief, Cas seems to be in a much better mood, this morning.

(Although Dean swears he’s still looking at him like he’s waiting for that goddamn kiss.)

(It’s probably his imagination.)

“Did you sleep well?” Cas asks him, once he’s guided Dean into one of the terrace chairs and made it clear _he’ll_ be preparing their coffee, this morning.

“Great,” Dean lies. As tired as he was, he couldn’t help lying awake, trying to pick apart the evening, between Cas’s greeting hug and the pink chrysanthemums and the request for a kiss and the weird exchange on the stairs, and by the time he _did_ manage to fall asleep, he wasn’t any less worried about all of it. “What about you?”

“Not as well as I could have. Anna was — difficult. But I’ve had a good morning.” Cas smiles slightly, reaching for the tiny pitcher of cream, then murmurs, “At her expense.”

Dean lifts his brows, though he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little enchanted by the sly cast to Cas’s expression.

“Do I wanna know?”

Cas shrugs, handing Dean his mug and then starting in on his own.

“She’s upset with me for making you a pie.”

“For-” Dean stops, gaze flying to the mysterious covered dish in the middle of the tray. He’d been wondering about that, about the tiny plates and forks next to it, but- “Dude. You made me a _pie_? Again?”

Cas smiles, a barely-there thing at the corners of his mouth, in his stupid blue eyes, and Dean is glad he isn’t choosing now to ask about that kiss, or else Dean’s pretty sure he’d go with Charlie’s advice on this one, stupid brats and their stupid courtship bouquets be utterly damned.

“I did. It’s not a fruit I’ve used before, though, so it might not be very good. I hope you like peaches.”

“I fucking love peaches,” Dean says quickly, and oh, _fuck,_ that smile just _grows_.

“I’m glad,” Cas murmurs, and a few seconds later, the scent of happy omega, of happy _Cas,_ specifically, hits him like a carriage going twenty miles an hour, so sweet and dewy Dean swears he can feel it on his tongue. “Of course, she was also upset because the girls in the kitchen were discussing how handsome you were.”

Dean chokes on his first sip of coffee, and Cas immediately sets down the sugar spoon, reaching for a napkin. Instead of handing it to Dean, though, he carefully starts dabbing at the corners of his mouth, fingers warm through the cloth.

“Are you alright?”

“Uh. Yeah,” he manages, trying not to stare at Cas’s face too hard, though the way Cas is gazing at him, all serious, blue-eyed concern, makes it kind of difficult.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Just — surprised me, is all.”

Dean resists the urge to ask, _what about you_? because whether Cas thinks he’s handsome or not is irrelevant.

(Although, according to Sam and Charlie, and that one thing Cas said after Dean came out of the bath-)

“Anyway. She’s very upset.” Cas smiles a little as he returns to his coffee, stirring in the eight pounds of sugar he likes it with. “She’s frequently upset, these days, but — I think she was having fun this morning, anyway.”

“Uh. Okay. That’s . . . good.” Not being familiar with Anna, Dean doesn’t really understand how ‘upset’ and ‘having fun’ balance out here, exactly, but he’s glad if this isn’t one of those times she’s being shit to Cas, even if he’s still worried about the times when she is.

“It is.” Cas looks contemplative for a moment, and then he glances up at Dean again, eyes warm. “Do you want to wait for it to try and set a little, or . . .?”

“Now’s fine.” Honestly, Dean’s not picky about what form or level of doneness his pie takes, and since _Cas_ made this one, he thinks it’d have to be full of undercooked, yet-to-be-deboned fish for him to be anything less than eager to eat it. “I, uh. I like it fresh from the oven, too.”

Cas looks relieved.

“Good, because it is.” He hesitates, fingering the edge of the cloth. “I hope it’s not too hot. Or wet.”

“It’s fine,” Dean assures him quickly. “I like it hot and wet.”

Of course, as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them, but Cas just rewards him with a beatific smile, firmly tugging the cloth off.

“Oh. I’ll remember that,” he promises, and even though Dean _knows_ better, knows Cas is genuinely just noting a pie preference of a friend, he can’t help but feel a rush of heat at the words, at the low, sure tone they’re uttered in, almost like it’s a promise of a different kind.

He licks his lips, desperately trying to remind himself that Cas has no idea what Dean actually just said, is definitely not alluding to any other situations where he’d need to know that Dean liked it _hot_ and _wet,_ and that ‘never’ is the time to think about Cas and ‘hot and wet’ in the same goddamn sentence.

He’s certainly not going to get a semi over coffee at six in the fucking morning, no matter how much a part of him _does_ want to take a moment to think about that sentence in as much detail as his imagination is willing to provide, because that would just be _wrong._

Cas freezes suddenly, sniffing, then gives the pie a puzzled look.

“It smells great, Cas,” Dean offers, a guilty effort to distract him, and after a moment, Cas nods.

“It does,” he says slowly, tilting his head. “It smells . . . very good.”

_Jesus._

Dean clears his throat, reaching for the little plates.

“Here, let me help,” he says, separating them and distributing the forks. “It, uh, it looks awesome.”

Which — it really does. This one has four slits in the top, a circle punched out of the center, and the edges are crimped beautifully, golden brown and glistening. It _is_ still hot, steam pouring into the crisp morning air, and if Dean’s mouth weren’t already kind of watering over the idea of a different hot and wet thing, he’s pretty sure that beautifully crusted top would do it.

“Thank you,” Cas murmurs, looking pleased, and then he neatly starts cutting into it, breathing a sigh of relief when the piece lifts with minimal drip.

Dean smiles.

“Perfect,” he offers, and Cas shrugs, carefully transferring it to a plate.

“We’ll see.”

Dean eagerly cuts off a bite, once he’s got it in his hands, and as soon as he’s deemed it cool enough to eat, he pretty much shoves it in his mouth. Ripe peach explodes across his tongue, sweet and thick and just the right amount of tart, and Dean closes his eyes, letting out an appreciative noise.

“God, Cas,” he mumbles around the bite, forcing himself to open his eyes again, catching Cas’s gaze. “’S’ _incredible._ ”

Cas blinks at him.

“I-is it?”

Dean nods, doing his best to savor the bite.

“Second best pie I ever had,” he says as soon as he can manage, hoping Cas will understand, and he thinks Cas’s cheeks get a little pink.

“Oh. Um. Thank you, Dean.” Cas shifts a little in his chair, though he looks pleased. “I’m glad you think so.”

“Hey, c’mon. You try it. It’s amazing, buddy — you’ve got a gift.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Cas says quickly, though he’s smiling again. “Although — I tried my best.”

“Well, your best is fucking fantastic,” Dean insists, and Cas huffs.

“If you say so.”

But then he takes a bite, and Dean can tell by the surprise on his face that Cas knows it’s pretty damn good, too.

“See?” he says smugly, and Cas shakes his head.

“Finish your pie, Dean.”

Dean hums, more than happy to do so, but playfully knocks his foot against Cas’s underneath the table while he lines up his next bite.

With an unmistakably content sigh, Cas nudges him back, the smile still in his eyes, and Dean tries not to think too hard about that little-used bench in Cas’s garden, or how this morning is cold enough to maybe want a blanket.

“It’s cold out,” Cas says after a little while, like he’s read Dean’s mind, and Dean nods.

“Do you wanna head inside?”

Cas hesitates.

“Not really. It’s still nice.” He shrugs. “I like to watch the sun finish coming up over the river.”

“Yeah, the view’s gorgeous, here,” Dean agrees, glancing at it for the first time that morning, though he’s not surprised to find it’s true. The sky is still a cool, vivid blue, faint threads of orange and pink lingering on the horizon, and the river is a lazy, glittering gold in the morning sun. “Wow. That really is something.”

“I don’t think you got a chance to look out the window, but — that’s my favorite part of my room, here. The view of the river.”

Dean nods, watching it for a moment, and then he snorts.

“What was that about, anyway?”

“Hm?”

“You told everyone I liked looking out the window.”

“Oh.” Cas doesn’t answer for a moment, clearly weighing his options.

“Cas.”

Cas shrugs.

“I wanted Charlie and Sam in the chairs so I could sit on the bed with you, but I didn’t want Billie or Samandriel to get upset. I was trying to mislead them.”

Dean stares, torn between laughter and embarrassment.

“You wanted to sit on the bed with me, huh?”

Cas looks down, sheepish.

“Yes. Very much. Like — like we used to. I — I like my work, and I like having money, even though I haven’t spent it yet, and I even like the city, a little bit, though I’d prefer Anna not know, but — I miss having evenings with you.” He clears his throat. “I miss it a lot.”

And maybe it’s _too_ cold, despite the morning sun, because it feels like the chill is suddenly getting into his lungs, sticking with every breath and making his chest ache.

“I, uh. I miss it, too,” he finally manages to say, and Cas gives him a sharp look.

“Really?”

“Yeah. A lot.”

“Oh.” Cas blinks, and then he looks down, strangely subdued. “Of course, you must still be glad to have the time back, for — for other things.”

Dean frowns.

_I’d_ _way_ _rather have you,_ he almost says, but that hits a little close to home, for him, and the last thing he wants is for it to sound like he’s trying to talk Cas into coming back with him, or something.

“Honestly, it, uh, it’s kind of boring, without you. Was before you got there, too, but — especially now. Working in the garden’s definitely not as fun by myself, although I’m allowed to let the weeds go a little longer, now,” he jokes, kind of desperate to get that sad, doubtful look off Cas’s face.

It works. Cas’s chin jerks up, surprise overtaking the forlornness.

“My — garden?”

“Uh. Yeah?”

“But — isn’t it . . . dead?”

“ _What_ ?” Dean sets his mug down, appalled. “Dude, _no._ You busted your ass — not to mention _mine —_ getting it to start actually growing shit. You — you fucking _loved_ that thing. I wouldn’t let it _die._ ”

Cas just stares.

Dean coughs, hunching back into his chair and picking his mug back up, suddenly self-conscious.

“Besides,” he sniffs. “Nothin’ else to do around there.”

“And — you’re the one that takes care of it?”

“Yeah? I mean, Charlie and Sam pitch in — even Pam comes to heckle me, sometimes — but yeah, Cas, of course I do. Who else would do it?”

Cas blinks.

“The groundskeepers?”

Which — okay, yeah, that makes a little bit of sense, except they have the whole rest of the castle grounds to take care of, and also, it’s _Cas’s_ garden.

Dean wouldn’t just turn it over to someone who didn’t appreciate what it meant to him.

“They’re busy,” Dean mumbles, sipping his coffee. “Anyway, Kate and the maids are lookin’ after it while I’m away, but — it’s doing good, I think. Annie says the patients like to sit out on the terrace and look at it. Also it smells good, apparently?”

Cas’s lips quirk, although he still looks a little shocked.

“That’s — good. I’m glad.” He hesitates, searching Dean’s face. “Thank you. I know that — it takes a lot of time. But I hated thinking it had just . . .”

He trails off, swallowing, and Dean impulsively leans forward, reaching for his hand and squeezing.

“Hey. I told you. I wouldn’t have let it die, Cas. Not if I could help it.” He ducks his chin, trying to catch Cas’s eye, and after a moment, Cas shyly meets his gaze. “And I really don’t have anything else to do. Well — except the last week or so, Tara had me doing like, a hundred interviews, but — _most of the time,_ I’m free, and I — I kind of like the work.”

He wishes Cas was still there doing it with him, but it’s better than nothing.

Cas tilts his head.

“Interviews?”

“Oh.” Dean makes a face. “Yeah. You said you got the proclamation, right? I had to interview all the candidates.”

Cas blinks.

And then he abruptly withdraws his hand, looking away.

“I see. And — did you — have you chosen someone?”

“Well, yeah, but — I had to choose more than one person.”

Cas makes a strangled noise, gaze flying back to his.

“You did?” he whispers, and Dean shrugs, puzzled.

“Of course. We’re assembling a team of twelve.”

Cas blanches, stiffening in his chair.

“ _Twelve?_ ” he repeats. “A — a _team_?”

Dean hesitates. Cas seems to be getting more and more upset, but for the life of him, Dean doesn’t understand why.

“Uh. Yeah? New Eden’s pretty big, and especially to start with . . . honestly, we’re still not sure twelve will be enough.”

Cas stares at him for a long, long moment.

He opens his mouth, then shuts it.

Dean just waits, at a loss.

“Twelve — what?” he finally asks, and Dean cocks his head.

“Enforcers? To make sure none of the stuff you told me about keeps happening?”

Cas’s expression goes slack.

And then he lets out a long, unhappy sigh.

“Of course,” he mutters.

“Dude. What did you think I meant?”

Cas grimaces.

“The other proclamation.”

“What other proclamation?”

Cas sniffs, staring hard at the table.

“Regarding your heirs.”

Dean blinks.

“Regarding my — I’m sorry, _what_?”

“Your heirs,” Cas huffs. “The proclamation that says you’re seeking a noblewoman to volunteer, Dean.”

Dean gapes at him, some nauseating blend of shock and horror gripping him.

“That I’m — no, I’m not!” he sputters. “And — hold the fuck up, you thought I needed _twelve_ of them?”

“No, I _didn’t_ !” Cas snaps. “I didn’t even want you to need _one_ of them!”

Dean’s ire fades slightly, confusion taking its place.

“What?”

Cas closes his eyes.

“Nothing. Never mind. Thank you for taking care of my garden.” He opens his eyes, looking down. “Though I suppose I’ll never see it again, either way.”

And — yeah, that’s probably true, but -

“Cas. What do you-”

“Some people think you should marry a princess,” Cas interrupts, still not looking at him. “The one in Edgewater.”

“Isabela?” Dean makes a face. There’s always been rumors that she was the one who poisoned the king so her brother could take the throne, and he’s had enough of fearing for his life, thanks. “Hard pass.”

Anyway, the last thing Dean wants at this point is to get _married._ Even if Cas’ll probably be mated and wed to the stupid Northern kid by the year’s end — although Dean’s still not sure that whole situation is really okay, and not just because he’s jealous as fuck and dreading his own obligations — Dean doesn’t see any reason to double-down on his suffering.

Besides, Princess Isabela probably won’t appreciate the whole sleeping-with-another-omega’s-portrait thing.

(She definitely won’t understand the nightgown.)

“Why? Anna-” Cas pauses, then sighs. “Anna says she’s very beautiful. And — charming.”

Dean arches a brow.

“Anna knows Princess Isabela?”

“No, but — that’s what the books say.”

“Huh. Well, they’re not wrong, but — she’s not really my type.”

Cas gives him a sharp look.

“You’ve met her?”

“A couple times. She travels through Winchester a lot, since she collects art and shit, so she came to make up to Dad and get his permission, since we’re not necessarily allies with Edgewater.”

“Oh.” Cas is quiet for a minute. “But — you found her unattractive?”

“Uh. I mean, she’s plenty attractive, just — not to me.”

Cas nods slowly.

“I see.”

If Dean didn’t know any better, he’d say Cas looked _satisfied,_ which would make sense, in conjunction with _I didn’t even want you to need_ one _of them_ and _Will you kiss me_?, but not if you take into account pink chrysanthemums and Cas making sure to tell Samandriel he appreciated them.

“What are you going to do, then?” Cas continues abruptly. “About the proclamation.”

Dean hesitates, sobering.

“And — this other proclamation said we were looking for volunteers?”

“Noblewomen,” Cas clarifies. “There were, um. Criteria.”

“Oh. I, uh. I didn’t know they’d sent that out, but I guess — I’ve gotta figure something out eventually, huh?” Dean swallows, a little sick, though he probably should have anticipated this. He tries to smile, catching Cas’s eye. “Well — at least it won’t be you, right?”

Cas doesn’t return the smile. If anything, Dean would almost say he looks like he’s been slapped.

“Right,” he says after a beat, gaze dropping. “I — I should head to the docks.”

“Oh. Do you, uh. Do you want me to go with you?”

Cas quickly shakes his head.

“No. You traveled a long way, and then you woke up early. You should rest.”

“Okay.” Dean hesitates. “Do you still want me to come by later?”

To his relief, Cas immediately nods.

“Yes.”

“Four, right?”

“At the latest.”

“Oh. I can come earlier? I don’t mind waiting for you.”

Cas gives him a long look, at that.

Then he nods.

“I’d like that.”

“Awesome. I’ll, uh. I’ll head over here around three, then.”

“Please do.” Cas pauses. “And — don’t forget your pie. If you leave it here, someone else will eat it.”

Dean cracks a smile.

“Of course. I know how big houses work,” he chuckles, and at last, Cas smiles slightly.

“Alright. Have a nice day, Dean.” He stands, so Dean does, too, just sort of watching him.

“Got everything you need?”

Cas nods.

“Just me.”

“Ah.” Dean tries not to look too interested in Cas’s arms, covered by a jacket though they are. “Well. You have a good day, too.”

“I will,” Cas says, oddly confident. “And — you’ll be waiting for me. When I’m done.”

Dean smiles.

“Yeah. I will.”

“Good,” Cas murmurs, and Dean’s heart doesn’t skip a beat, not at all. “I suppose I should go, then.”

Still, he doesn’t move, just looking at Dean, less than two feet away, not quite wistful and not quite sad, but looking vaguely bereft nonetheless.

Dean really, really wants to kiss him.

But even if Cas would let him — that causes a lot more problems than it solves, so Dean takes a deep breath, takes a step back, and carefully tucks his hands in his pockets.

“See you later, Cas.”

For a moment, Cas doesn’t respond, still looking at him.

“Sorry,” he finally says. “I don’t usually leave you. It doesn’t feel right.”

Dean swallows, hard.

_Understatement of the fucking year._

“Yeah, well, leaving you never felt right, either,” he offers, shrugging. “But, uh. I think one of us always has to.”

Cas nods, slow.

“I suppose that’s true.” He draws in a breath, then steps back. “Alright. I’ll see you this afternoon, Dean.”

And with one last long, unfathomable look at Dean, he turns around and starts off toward the stables.

Dean just sits there in the new, bright gold light of day and watches him go.

Anyway, Dean grabs the pie — and just in time, too, since a pair of women bustle out onto the terrace barely ten seconds after he picks it up, coming to retrieve the coffee tray — and then lugs it back to Bobby’s with mixed feelings.

He has no idea what’s going on with Cas.

Still. He figures he has a few more days to try and figure it out, and in the meantime — he can’t help it.

He’s looking forward to the afternoon, anyway.

He’s looking forward to the whole trip, honestly. When he gets home, Dad’s probably going to give him his options — unless they’re just going to pick someone without asking him at all — and then Dean’ll have a matter of days before it’s time to do his duty.

It’s hard to even think of _touching_ somebody else, at this point, let alone having a child with an absolute stranger.

No, for right now, Dean’s here, and so is Cas, and even if three days doesn’t really seem like enough, even if Dean’s dreading the day Samandriel comes bearing that final cluster of red chrysanthemums, whether he has to hear about it or not, all of that’s beyond his control, and he’s decided he’s not going to let it spoil his time with Cas.

Today, he’s going to meet Cas after work, and hopefully Anna and her daggers are going to keep way the fuck away, and if they try hard enough -

Maybe it’ll be like old times.

Of course, this time around, Dean’s very conscious of the fact that he’s the one waiting, and by the time he’s had a nap and reluctantly shared his pie with Sam and Charlie — “Dude, we’re letting you have Day One all to yourself. You owe us some freaking pie.” — and managed to talk Lucy into letting him wait by the door, he has an idea.

“Uh. Hi. Billie, right?”

The scary, curly-haired alpha pauses at the foot of the stairs, turning toward his perch on the bench in the foyer with a raised brow.

“Yes?”

Dean clears his throat, hoping he wasn’t wrong about where her allegiance seemed to lie.

“Suppose a guy wanted to draw a bath for Cas, for when he got back from work, and he pilfered a bunch of those bubbly salts from Bobby’s to put in it. How, uh. How would he go about doing that?”

Billie cocks her head, brow climbing higher.

“Well, he’d have to have access to Castiel’s bedroom, to begin with.”

“With supervision?” Dean asks hopefully, and she hums.

“I don’t know. Supervision is busy, right now.”

He sighs inwardly.

“Right. Sorry to bother you.”

“I could probably keep an eye on you from my room, of course,” she adds, and he perks up. “While you hauled the water up.”

Dean tries not to make a face, at that.

“Ah. No, uh, no running water in the rooms, huh?”

Billie slowly shakes her head, amused.

“You’re a . . . strapping alpha. I’m sure carrying the buckets up won’t be that hard.”

Maybe not, but it’ll still be a pain in the ass. Never mind _heating_ it.

He gives her a bright smile, anyway.

“If someone’ll let me do that, that’d be great.”

She lifts a shoulder.

“Alright. I’ll show you where the buckets are.”

“Thank you,” he says, quickly standing and hastening after her when she starts down the hall. “I, uh. I appreciate it.”

“Well, feel free to prepare my bath, too, then.”

Dean freezes, uncertain, and she glances over her shoulder, smirking.

“I jest. I already had one.”

“Oh.” He chuckles weakly. “That, uh. Ha. Good one.”

“Mm.”

They stop in front of a closet by the kitchen, and she opens the door, gesturing to two large metal buckets inside, a pole leaned against the wall beside them.

“Enjoy,” she tells him, and Dean tries not to look too grim when he smiles at her.

“Thanks.”

He reaches for both buckets and the pole, resigned to his fate, and jerks his head toward the terrace doors at the end of the hall.

“Mind if I go out that way?”

Billie blinks, staring at him for a moment.

And then she slowly nods.

“Of course, your highness.”

“Great.” He takes a deep breath. “Well, see you in a bit.”

And then he turns and heads for the river.

It’s a warm day, and Cas’s undershirt is soaked with sweat by the time his shift is over, his hair damp and in equal disarray.

Which, even if Dean said he liked it messy — Cas doubts he’ll like it _dirty._

He’s at least dry, by the time he’s made the ride back to Mills Park, but he starts sweating again on the walk back from the stables, and by the time he finally makes it inside, he’s cursing his foolishness.

He should have realized he’d want a _bath_ before he saw Dean again.

There’s some sort of commotion in the kitchen, if all the hushed voices and giggles are anything to go by, but he ignores them, scanning the front rooms and foyer for any sign of Dean. A quick peek out the front door yields nothing, as well, and Cas isn’t sure whether to be upset or relieved that at three-forty, Dean still hasn’t come.

At any rate, he might as well try and have a cold bath before he gets here.

(A spiteful part of him thinks Dean can just _wait,_ if he’s going to be late, anyway, even after _promising._ )

Of course, as tends to be his luck, the bath buckets are missing.

He scowls at the empty space in the supply closet for a moment, irritation mounting, and since his ire fails to cause any buckets to materialize, he shuts the door and ducks into the kitchen.

“How long ago did someone take the buckets?” he asks without preamble, and the room falls silent.

Several of them exchange looks, eyes bright, smiles strange.

“Oh, a — a while ago.”

He huffs.

“How long is _a while_ ? It doesn’t take _that_ long to fill a bath.”

After all, Mills Park might not be the capital, but it’s not New Eden, either. They have a water tap right there in the kitchen.

“Well, if it helps, I think they just went up with the last of it?” Vivian offers, biting her lip, and Cas relaxes, somewhat mollified.

“Oh. Well, then I’ll wait.”

“Oh, no,” she says quickly. “I think you should go on up, Castiel.”

“But I want a bath.”

“Right, but — best stop by your room, first.”

“But-”

“I’ll come get you when they’ve returned them?” she offers, and Cas hesitates.

He supposes he _could_ shave first.

“Alright. If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“Oh, not at all,” she says brightly. “It would be my pleasure.”

A couple of them giggle, and though Cas spares them a puzzled, somewhat uneasy glance, he nods.

“Then — thank you very much, Vivian. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Have fun!” she says, which seems rather odd, but he dismisses it.

If he needs to know about it, he’ll no doubt find out at dinner.

That settled, he hurries out of the kitchen and up the stairs, trying not to worry over Dean’s failure to appear. There are a number of reasons he may have been held up; it doesn’t mean he won’t come at all.

In any case, worried speculation on those reasons comes to a halt as he nears his room, and he slows, disturbed to see the door wide open.

He certainly hadn’t _left_ it like that.

He approaches nervously, a little worried over what he might find, though as far as he knows, there are almost never problems — and stops short when he reaches the doorway.

Dean grins, steaming bucket of water mid-pour over the wide copper tub, and winks at him.

“Hey, buddy. Just in time. How, uh. How do you feel about a bath?”

Cas just stares for a moment, stunned.

And then something warm and giddy unfurls in his stomach, and he leans against the doorjamb for support, suddenly a little lightheaded.

“I thought you were late.”

Dean huffs, emptying the bucket.

“I was here at two, Cas.” He straightens, setting it aside with a smile. “Brought you some grape bath salts. They bubble.”

Cas takes a deep breath, just sort of looking at him.

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“Yeah, I did,” Dean says easily. “I’m, uh, not a fan of dock grime.”

Cas briefly closes his eyes, shaking his head, though he can’t help the smile.

“You’re absurd.”

“And probably in need of a bath myself,” Dean jokes. “The river’s not nearly as close as it looks.”

Cas stills, puzzled.

“The river?”

“Yeah. And don’t even get me started on that goddamn _hill._ ”

Cas looks at Dean for a long moment, and suddenly, the mood in the kitchen makes sense.

He ducks his chin, torn between amusement and guilt and a completely inappropriate sense of _delight,_ because Dean-

“You brought the water from the river,” he clarifies, and Dean lifts his brows.

“Where else was I gonna get it?”

Cas hesitates.

“The tap in the kitchen.”

The smile disappears.

“The tap in the — _what_?”

“I’m sorry. If I’d been here, I would have told you-”

“Right, but _Billie_ was here, and when I _asked_ about going outside, she didn’t say a damn word!”

Honestly, Cas isn’t surprised; and while a part of him is upset on Dean’s behalf, another part is just grateful she aided Dean in his mission at all.

“I’m very sorry, Dean. She was probably amused.”

( _Cas_ is a little amused, though mostly just — pleased. Very pleased.)

Dean scowls for a long moment, and then he sighs, and Cas is relieved to see the smile creeping back.

“Yeah, alright. If it were Sam, I’d be laughing my ass off right now. Fine. Well-played, Billie!” he calls loudly, wry, and Cas thinks he hears an answering hum from down the hall.

Still — he smoothly steps inside, shutting the door behind him.

And then, even though Anna has a key and is perfectly capable of sabotaging him, anyway-

He locks it once again.

For some reason, Dean’s smile slips.

“Uh. I think I’m supposed to — you know. Be on the other side of that.”

Cas shrugs.

“If you’d like. I thought we could talk, though.”

“Oh.” Dean swallows, suddenly averting his gaze, though Cas is still perfectly decent. “I’ll just, uh. Turn around.”

“Well, obviously. I wouldn’t make you look at me.”

Dean goes still, and then he frowns.

“What?”

Cas raises a brow.

“I’m not exactly pleasant to look at.”

Dean’s mouth falls open.

“Dude. Yes, you — trust me, you are.”

Cas tilts his head.

“I’m not. Certainly not like you are.”

Again, Dean seems momentarily speechless.

Then he huffs, shaking his head.

“You’re right. Because you’re _way_ more ‘pleasant to look at’ than I am. Pretty much _anyone_ would love to look at you like this, they just — they shouldn’t.”

Cas licks his lips, somewhat taken with the idea of that, of ‘anyone’ loving to look at him, because ‘anyone’ would by nature include _Dean_.

Dean is welcome to, if he wants, though Cas finds it difficult to believe he really does.

“You could,” he offers anyway, and Dean makes a startled noise, drawing back slightly.

“I — Cas, I _especially_ shouldn’t.”

“Why not?” Cas hesitates. “You’ve already seen me. The night of the festival,” he adds, in case Dean doesn’t remember.

Dean’s eyes widen slightly, but he says nothing, and Cas is surprised to watch his cheeks slowly darken, turning rosy beneath his gaze.

“I . . . uh. Yes. Yes, I — I have, but — I shouldn’t have, and — I shouldn’t, now.”

Cas isn’t quite sure how to describe the look on Dean’s face as he says this.

Still, something about it makes his heart beat faster, has his stomach fluttering in a very strange, very pleasant way.

“It’s your choice,” he eventually manages to say. “But — I don’t mind.”

And Cas remembers the night of the festival, too, remembers it vividly, remembers feeling uncomfortable with the idea of Dean looking at him, relieved when they mutually agreed not to.

Somehow, he doesn’t feel nearly so uncomfortable now.

And when Dean fails to turn around, just _keeps_ looking at him, eyes somehow seeming darker than usual, pupils perhaps a little larger, though Cas thinks the daylight is plenty bright . . .

Cas reaches for the buttons of his waistcoat, enchanted by Dean’s strange, focused expression, and carefully strips it off.

Dean doesn’t look away, and Cas moves on to the buttons of his shirt, heart pounding so hard he can feel it as his fingers work their way down. He has no idea what’s possessed him, but he can neither bring himself to stop or look away.

He sees Dean swallow, once he’s shrugged out of the shirt, and he pauses, watching his throat bob with the motion, a sudden tightness in his stomach.

“You should sit,” he says. “On the bed.”

For a moment, Dean doesn’t move.

“Uh.”

“I want to look at you while we talk,” Cas offers by way of explanation, though really, he always thinks Dean looks better in a bed than in a chair.

(In a bed belonging to Cas, anyway.)

“Oh. Okay. That — that makes sense,” Dean says, oddly hoarse, and then he sort of shuffles backward, feeling around for the edge of the bed rather than turning away.

Cas feels a rush of pleasure at that, at the fact that Dean _doesn’t_ look away from him, not even once.

“Good,” he says softly, once Dean has perched on the edge, and then he reaches for the buttons on his trousers, surprised to find his fingers trembling.

Still, he manages enough of the buttons to slide them off, at least, pushing his sadly plain white drawers after them.

“I brought some of ‘em,” Dean blurts out, green eyes blinking rapidly, cheeks still flushed in the loveliest of ways. “I . . . back at Bobby’s. I forgot, today, but — the first ones Pamela picked out. You — you seemed like you liked those, a lot, so — I — and I can get them for you. If you want.”

It takes Cas a moment to realize what he’s talking about.

“My drawers?” he asks, startled. “You — you brought me my drawers?”

Dean hesitates.

“Yeah. You left them behind.”

Cas feels as touched as he did the first time he thought Dean had picked them out for him.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and Dean takes a shaky breath.

“Yeah. Of course. I — I brought some other stuff, too, that I think were your favorites.”

Whether they are or aren’t, Cas is just glad to have something of home.

“That — that was kind of you.”

“Well, it’s your stuff,” Dean protests. “Not really fair for you to have to leave it behind.”

There are a number of things Cas thought it wasn’t really fair for him to have to leave behind, but thus far, no on else has sought to correct any of it.

Dean clears his throat, gaze moving strangely.

“You, uh. You should get in. Before it gets cold.”

“Right.” At last, Cas forces himself to look away, carefully keeping his back from Dean’s view as he approaches the tub and gingerly steps into it, slowly sinking into the hot, sweetly-scented water.

Once he’s seated, Dean coughs.

“Does it feel good? I mean — right. Comfortable. The — the temperature.”

Cas nods, tipping his head back slightly.

“It feels very good,” he answers truthfully, glancing toward Dean. “Thank you.”

The only other time in his life someone else has prepared his baths for him was when Anna did it, after he came out of heat, and as grateful as Cas was for that -

His gratitude feels very, very different, now.

“Sure. Any time.”

Cas resists the urge to ask how _Dean_ feels, if he is, indeed, enjoying looking at Cas. He doesn’t necessarily look _happy,_ but he looks — something. That same something that sent a thrill through Cas’s body a moment ago, that has him shifting in the tub, strangely aware of the water moving over his skin.

“I’ll try to hurry,” he offers, though he feels unusually eager to take his time, to savor the hot water and the bubbles, scrubbing away the day’s work with thorough, leisurely strokes and idling at the end, just for the sake of it.

That would be rude, with someone waiting on him.

“Oh, uh — no. No, you — take your time, Cas. Stay in as long as you want.”

Cas considers this.

“You did go through a lot of effort to prepare it.”

Dean nods quickly.

“I did. You should enjoy it.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

“’Course,” Dean mumbles, and with that, Cas picks up his washcloth.

And though Cas had sincerely intended for them to talk while he bathed, so reluctant was he to waste their time -

Dean remains absolutely silent, and Cas finds himself at a loss for words, as well, all his focus on the cloth as he slides it over his skin, on glancing back to Dean, some perverse part of him wanting to make sure he’s still looking.

He is.

Cas can tell the water is cooling, but he has the strangest sensation of his body somehow growing _hotter,_ even as the wet, rough slide of the cloth over his skin has him fighting back shivers.

“You, uh. You forgot your back,” Dean interjects at some point, and Cas blinks, looking up at him.

Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if Dean told him he’d washed his arms four times.

“You’re right.”

Dean shifts, hands clasped tightly in his lap. Some trick of the light makes his eyes look nearly black.

“You want help?” he asks, voice pitched low, and a shiver travels violently down Cas’s spine.

“No. I don’t want you to look at my back,” he manages to say, and Dean frowns.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s ugly.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s not. I like your back. I mean, it pisses me off, but it also makes me think of how you kicked some dickbag’s ass, so.” He shrugs. “There’s that.”

Cas tilts his head.

“And that’s a good thing.”

“You’re a badass, Cas. That’s an awesome thing.”

Cas hesitates.

“Still. I’d rather you not.” He clears his throat. “You can help me with my hair, though.”

No sooner have the words left his mouth than Dean is lurching off the bed.

“Yeah, of course.”

Cas quickly slides down in the tub, shielding his back from view.

“Alright. Thank you.”

He watches until Dean disappears from his field of vision, then closes his eyes, listening to Dean rummage through the bottles.

“Aha,” Dean mumbles, and then there’s a soft thump behind him, a slight displacement of air ruffling his hair, and Cas decides Dean must have knelt down.

He tilts his head back a little further, not quite able to help himself.

“Cas,” Dean murmurs, and Cas flinches when he feels a hand in his hair, gently carding, and then immediately moves into it. “You need to get wet.”

“I _am_ wet,” Cas retorts, trying to lean further to the side, chasing the sensation of Dean’s fingers, and Dean huffs a laugh, a warm puff against Cas’s temple.

“Your hair, Cas.”

“Oh.” That’s a fair point. Cas reluctantly bends his knees, shimmying down until he can mostly dunk his head in the water.

He feels Dean’s fingers brush his forehead, and then he slides back up, finally blinking his eyes open, squinting at him.

“Am I wet enough for you, now?” he asks, arch, but for some reason, Dean doesn’t laugh.

He simply stares down at Cas, hand frozen against the side of his head.

“No,” he eventually says, voice rough. “But, uh. It’ll do.”

Cas frowns, opening his mouth to ask for an explanation, but then Dean’s fingers sink into his hair, gripping slightly, and the words dry up.

“Close your eyes, Cas.”

Cas just nods, abruptly short of breath, and shuts his eyes.

After a moment, Dean’s other hand joins the first, and then he slowly begins working the shampoo through Cas’s hair, the pads of his fingers the good kind of rough as they drag against Cas’s scalp.

He swallows the very untoward noise that wants to burrow up from his throat, and settles for tilting back a little more.

“Good,” Dean says quietly, and the word seems to sink under his skin, traveling straight through his body, spreading out through his fingertips and leaving sparks across every inch it passes. He pauses, and the hand on the right side of Cas’s head tightens its grip, gently nudging him left. “Turn?”

Cas turns, and Dean’s hands resume their work, carefully massaging the soapy water through his hair.

Dean doesn’t have to ask when it’s time to move to the other side, Cas simply moving with the pressure of his hand, and for the most part, Cas just relaxes back into his ministrations, wishing he’d thought to invite Dean to watch him bathe sooner.

Though — it occurs to him that this may be an odd thing to do. Certainly, if he’d tried to ask an alpha to help him bathe in New Eden-

Cas can’t help it. He snorts.

The hands in his hair pause.

“Ticklish?”

Cas smiles.

“No. Just — I’d have perished from flu within the week, if we’d done this in New Eden.”

Dean’s hands start moving again, albeit a little more slowly.

Cas doesn’t mind. Honestly, he thinks his hair was probably clean enough at least a minute ago, but he’s happy to have Dean’s hands on him like this indefinitely.

“Well. I’m glad we’re not in New Eden.”

“Me, too.” Ideally, they’d be at the castle, but if that were the case, Cas would never know that Dean was willing to haul bathwater from the _river_ for him, and that -

That seems like a shame.

“I think you’re about good,” Dean says after a moment, and Cas sighs as his hands slide free.

“If you insist.”

There’s a pause from behind him.

“Yeah? Did that, uh. Did that feel good?”

“Yes,” Cas admits, unabashed. “I’m not going to appreciate having to wash it on my own, next time.”

“Oh.” Dean clears his throat. “I’m glad you — that you liked it.”

Cas pauses.

“What about you?”

“Huh?”

“Did you like it? Watching me?”

There’s a long silence.

Cas wishes he could open his eyes.

“Yeah,” Dean eventually murmurs. “I really did, Cas.”

Warmth suffuses him.

“Good,” he says, and lest he get caught grinning like a fool, Cas quickly sinks back into the water.

When he reemerges, he’s disappointed to find Dean back on the bed, looking vaguely perturbed.

“Is something wrong?”

Dean blinks, then reaches up, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Nothing. Are you, uh. All set?”

“I think so. My towel is on the hook by the armoire, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Dean quickly stands back up.

“Of course.”

It’s only when he’s come back, awkwardly holding out the towel, that Cas realizes something terrible, something he _should_ have realized much sooner, and probably would have if he hadn’t been so preoccupied with the sensation of Dean’s hands working through his hair.

Cas is _erect._

And _slicking._

Shame and horror wash over him, and he instinctively hunches back into the tub, appalled at himself.

“I — please wait outside while I get dressed,” he mumbles, carefully keeping his gaze averted. Dean very kindly looked at him, and _enjoyed_ looking at him, and expertly washed his hair, and he doesn’t deserve to be subjected to Cas’s foolish body’s grotesque misbehavior.

For a moment, Dean doesn’t respond, and Cas feels a hysterical sort of panic, wondering if Dean can somehow _tell,_ though the salts have made the water opaque.

“Right,” Dean finally says, strained. “I’ll — I can just — the towel, I’ll — just on the bed, actually, uh. That — is that okay?”

Cas quickly nods.

“Yes. Please. Thank you.”

“Yup. Sure.”

And then, to his immense gratitude, Dean quickly throws the towel on the bed and seconds later, lets himself out into the hall.

Dean is going to hell.

Dean is definitely, absolutely, unequivocally going to hell, to burn in flames of agony for the entire rest of eternity, but more important than that -

_Cas was turned on._

Because Dean watched Cas bathe, pink chrysanthemums five feet away on the table and completely fucking disregarded, and then he washed Cas’s hair, Cas’s head a sweet, delicious weight in his hands, moving subtly into his touches, and then Cas _asked him if he’d liked watching,_ which was a stupid fucking question, because obviously the answer is _yes,_ how the hell could it not be, and naturally, Dean was super fucking turned on.

Except he was also ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent sure that that was _arousal_ he scented, right before Cas suddenly got shy about it and told him to wait outside, and since it definitely wasn’t his own — especially given his response to it — that means it was _Cas’s,_ which means that _yes,_ Cas was turned on, and Jesus-fucking- _Christ,_ all Dean wants to do is break down the goddamn door and sink right back into that tub with Cas to show him _just_ how wet is ‘wet enough for Dean,’ cold water and pink chrysanthemums be damned.

Hell, if Dean even thought he could get away with jerking off in the hallway of Jody’s family estate — which happens to be a safe, mostly man-free haven for women and omegas down on their luck — he’d be doing it right this goddamn minute.

He leans back against the door, taking deep, calming breaths and trying to will his erection dead, despite having just had the most erotic and ethically suspect experience of his fucking _life_ less than five minutes prior.

Which — yeah.

He’s _definitely_ going to hell.

(At least Anna hadn’t come bursting into the room again. Dean’s pretty sure he would have ended up with a dagger in his throat, if that had happened.)

Anyway, it feels like both thirty seconds and thirty minutes by the time Cas softly calls him back in, and however long it actually was, Dean’s settled down enough that he can probably get away with going back in there, at least without having Cas send him right back out in a fit of shock and disgust.

The window is open when he hesitantly pushes the door open, and Cas is sitting at the table, posture awkward and stiff, looking somehow disheveled despite the fresh set of clothing.

He offers Dean a tentative smile.

“Hello, Dean,” he says quietly.

Which — as vaguely delicious as Cas still looks, hair damp and clearly free of any efforts to tame it, waistcoat nowhere in sight, Dean can’t help himself.

Something about that soft, familiar greeting settles him down the rest of the way. He breathes in, ignoring the lingering traces of grape and something even sweeter, and smiles back.

“Hey, Cas.”

Cas’s smile grows, shoulders relaxing slightly.

“Thank you for the bath.”

_No, thank_ you _for the bath,_ Dean almost says, but he still has a few functioning brain cells left, so he simply shrugs.

“Sure. Any time. Even if I _do_ have to get it from the river,” he adds, teasing, but Cas doesn’t laugh.

Instead, his smile softens, eyes impossibly warm above it; and true to form, something in Dean just _melts,_ helplessly sliding down the inside of his ribs and pooling happily in his stomach.

And because Dean _does_ have a few functioning brain cells, and he wants to be worthy of that warm look besides, he shuffles forward and takes the chair opposite Cas like a normal, decent friend, instead of doing any of the things he actually wants to.

Because what he _actually_ wants is to hurl the stupid pink flowers right out the goddamn open window, and then he wants to kiss Cas until he’s breathless and dazed and desperate for more, and _then_ he wants to get down on one knee and beg Cas to let Dean wash his hair every night for as long as they both shall live.

He’s definitely, _definitely_ going to hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> After referring to her own history of having spent ten months locked in her mother-in-law’s attic, chained to a bed, one of the girls on the morning shift makes a joke about someone as handsome as Dean not _needing_ to force himself on her. Anna is quick to point out this is not really appropriate, since attractiveness is completely irrelevant to consent, and she apologizes, especially to Cas. Cas is confused at first, until Anna explains that some assumptions have been made about his time in Lawrence, and Cas clears the issue up.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: dark humor (about fabricated dead horses), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> So, first and foremost - [Diminuel](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/) made this _incredible_ [outfit post](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/post/616048676617535488/diminuel-i-re-read-expectations-by) for Cas!!! (I’m still low-key screaming over this.) If you’d like some ideas for what to picture, or just want to look at some super awesome art, go see!! :DDD

“Jeez, you weren’t kidding about the view, were you?”

Cas follows Dean’s gaze out the window, smiling at the slight look of awe in his face.

“No, I wasn’t. Even in bad weather, the sunset is . . . there aren’t words.”

“Yeah,” Dean says softly, staring into the distance, where the clear blue sky has turned dusky, the sun settling into a warm glow as it lazily drifts toward the horizon. “Kinda like — you ever been to a gallery?”

“A gallery?”

“You know, where they display art, so you can wander around and stare at it?”

“Oh. No. There are art vendors in town, but — I’ve never seen a place like that.”

“Huh. I guess — I’m not sure if there is one here, actually. Sioux Falls is known more for trade than culture.”

“There are a great many shops,” Cas agrees. “There’s even a woman in town who sells clocks that look like cats.”

“Yeah? You gonna buy one?”

Cas immediately shakes his head.

“No. They’re unsettling.”

Dean laughs, glancing back over to him.

“Seriously? How bad can they be?”

“Very,” Cas insists, trying not to think of their wide, glass eyes boring into him, the clock pieces ticking loudly and out of sync beneath eerie, half-human faces. “She’s a kind woman, but — very bad, Dean,” he repeats, not sure how else to explain.

Dean studies him for a moment.

And then, for some reason, he grins.

“Okay. I’ll, uh, be sure not to buy any clocks while I’m here.” Cas frowns, somehow not liking his tone, but Dean’s already glancing back toward the river. “Well, anyway — looks just like the gallery paintings. I mean, Sam and Charlie said so, but I figured they were just making shit up to taunt me.”

“To — taunt you?”

Dean shrugs, still facing toward the window, eyes and lashes turned gold in the sunset.

“Came home and talked about the river instead of telling me how you were.” He huffs. “Made me _ask._ ”

Cas frowns.

“How could they have known you wanted to know?”

At last, Dean turns back slightly, eyes narrowed a little.

“Cas. I didn’t give two shits about the river or any other stupid detail of the trip. I was on pins and needles waiting for news of you and trust me, they _knew_. They were deliberately being dicks.”

“Oh.”

Cas looks down, trying not to feel pleased. He’s sorry if Dean was feeling unduly persecuted — though Dean frequently tends to such illusions, and Cas still isn’t sure Sam and Charlie could have been expected to know this — but he is, as always, warmed by the prospect of being thought of.

Of — of being _cared_ for, in some way.

At the very least — not yet to be forgotten.

“Were you — worried?” he asks, not quite able to help himself, and Dean’s head snaps toward him, expression incredulous.

“ _Seriously_? Of course I was worried — you _ran away!_ Or — I thought you did. And even if I knew _where_ you were — you were in some strange place with a bunch of strange people, and it — I just didn’t know, man.” He looks down, clearly upset. “It was a big change for you, whether it was what you wanted or not. So yeah, I — I worried. Like crazy.”

Cas just looks at him for a moment, and though he knows he should feel guilty for being a source of stress -

Mostly, he just feels _good._

“Well. You didn’t need to. You won’t, when — when you leave,” he adds, sobering somewhat. “I’m fine, here.”

Dean looks back at him, unreadable.

“Yeah?”

Cas spreads his arms a little, tilting his head.

“Clearly.”

Dean’s mouth twitches down at the corner.

“Right, but — you know, that’s — physically. And sure, I’m glad you haven’t been maimed by Lucy’s sword practice or anything, but — you know. There’s a lot more to being . . . _fine_ , than being in one piece.”

Cas looks down, shrugging.

“I have everything I could possibly need.”

Dean is silent.

“You read my letter, didn’t you?”

“Yes?” So many times he lost count. “What about it?”

“Okay, then you know — you’re supposed to have everything you _want._ Not just — what you need.”

Cas hesitates, still not quite able to look at him.

“I don’t think that’s possible, Dean.”

Dean’s hands curl into fists on the table, and in Cas’s peripheral, he can see him leaning forward.

“Dude. Just because I came to visit you — everything in that letter stands, Cas. Didn’t I tell you last night? If you want something — just _ask_ me.”

At last, Cas looks up. Dean’s gaze is fixed on him, fierce, mouth unhappy in that way Cas always hates, lips pressed tightly together, bitter where they turn down at the corners.

Dean still underestimates his greed, clearly.

“You did,” he says slowly, watching him. “And then — I asked you.”

Dean stills.

Beneath Cas’s careful gaze, he swallows.

“That — that’s got nothing to do with your life here.”

“Anything wrong with my life here isn’t something you can fix,” Cas says evenly. “But you are here — for a time, anyway — and that is what I want.”

Dean says nothing, brow troubled, and Cas nods, looking back toward the river.

“I expected as much.” He clears his throat. “What have you been doing? Besides working in the garden.”

There’s another long pause.

“Not a lot. Like I said, it, uh. It’s kind of . . . boring, without you. We go dick around town, sometimes, but — that’s boring without you, too.”

“You only ever went with me once,” Cas points out, reluctantly looking back to him. Dean still looks pensive, but as soon as he meets Cas’s eye, he smiles slightly.

“And it was way more fun than the other times.” Dean shrugs, scratching his ear. “I, uh. I brought that stuff, too, by the way. Your book and your hat.”

“Oh.” Cas takes a moment to digest this. He supposes he _was_ complaining to Anna about his book, though the book itself was not so significant. “Thank you.”

Dean shrugs again.

“I can — you know, I can send the rest of your stuff. Hell, I can send you your bed, even. I just. I wasn’t sure what — what all you’d want. I didn’t, uh, didn’t wanna swamp you with bad reminders, or anything, but — you know. I want you to have it, if you want it.”

Cas swallows.

What had seemed like a kind gesture last night, a much-needed comfort here in Sioux Falls, so far from home — now feels like a — a rejection, almost.

It shouldn’t. It’s considerate of Dean, to want to reunite him with his possessions, but Cas has the unpleasant sense of being — cleared out, somehow.

What’s more, Dean’s willingness to send _all_ of his things along to Mills Park just reminds him -

“I suppose I won’t ever go back, will I?”

Dean quickly shakes his head.

“No. No way. Nobody’s ever gonna make you go back. I promise.”

Cas nods.

There is so much between him and Dean. And much of it is good, but — much of it -

Much of it is also painful, he thinks.

“I see.” He lifts his shoulders, absently studying the chrysanthemums. “Then — yes. I’d like my things. The bed isn’t necessary, obviously—" though a part of him is tempted — “But if it isn’t difficult — my clothes, at least. And my favorite nightgown — it’s the one like the sheets. I’d like that.”

Dean freezes.

“Uh.” He clears his throat, rubbing his jaw. “About — about that, actually, it kind of — you know, it got mistaken for the sheets? And it — there was an accident, in the laundry, and it just — yeah. Sorry.”

Cas squints.

“An . . . accident?”

“Yeah. They — needed a sheet. And your nightgown got caught up with them, but then it was too late, and . . .”

“How was it too late?” Cas demands. “What did they need it for?”

Dean blinks back at him for a few seconds, expression strange.

“A dead body,” he blurts out.”

“A — _what_?”

“Yeah, there — somebody — you know, and you’ve gotta — but your nightgown was caught up in it, and it just — got rolled right in there, too.”

“I — alright, that — that is unfortunate, but — couldn’t it just be washed?”

“Uh. No. No, because — the dead body was a horse, actually, that we had to shoot, because — because they thought it might have plague.” Dean coughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Also its leg was broken. A-anyway, I’m — I’m really sorry, Cas.”

Cas just stares, dumbfounded.

“I . . . suppose it can’t be helped,” he agrees reluctantly, although he’s a little horrified by this gruesome chain of events. “I’m — sorry to hear about the horse.”

“Oh. Uh. She was dying, anyway, you know, old and — and blind, and — couldn’t — smell anymore?”

Cas nods slowly.

“Okay.”

“Poor — poor Mary,” Dean continues, shifting in his chair. “Named her after my mother, actually. Had her since I was a foal. A kid. A boy,” he amends, making a face. “Gonna — gonna really miss her. Sam will, too. Whole damn family just — loved that horse. Yeah.”

Cas blinks, taken aback.

“I — I’m _very_ sorry, Dean. That sounds . . . awful.”

“It really was,” Dean says in a rush, expression pained. “But enough about that, you know, no point dwelling.”

“Of course,” Cas agrees, hesitant, then reaches out, taking Dean’s hand and squeezing. “I’m sure it was a mercy for her, though.”

Dean looks down at their joined hands.

“It — I hope so,” he says, voice a little high, and despite his own sorrow and agitation, Cas regrets pushing.

It’s just a nightgown, after all. He hadn’t meant to force Dean to relive what was clearly a very traumatic event, if his difficulty articulating is anything to go by.

“Thank you for what you _have_ brought,” he says, sincere. “And — if the rest of it is difficult to send, it’s fine, Dean. I appreciate the thought, but mostly — I appreciate that you came.”

Dean keeps staring at their hands.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course — I told you I’d make sure things turned out okay, so — I wanted to do that.”

Cas supposes ‘okay’ is a very accurate way to describe the current situation.

Hardly a disaster, and his hardships are technically fewer than they have been for most of his life, but—

Not much better than ‘okay,’ either.

“Well, thank you.”

“No, don’t — I owe you this much, Cas.”

Cas knows no one ever owes you kisses, and they certainly don’t owe you love, but he wishes, just this once, that Dean could be so much in his debt.

“You really don’t,” he says softly. “You’ve done enough, Dean.”

And he has. He’s done everything he’s _willing_ to, at least.

Dean gives him a torn look.

“What about you?” he asks. “What — what do your days look like, here? Tell me about them.”

He turns his hand over, palm to Cas’s, and laces their fingers together — like he intends to keep holding on.

Cas takes heart in that.

“Well—" he starts, but before he can continue, there’s a loud, urgent knocking at the door. He squeezes Dean’s hand more tightly on reflex, turning to glare at the door.

“Yes?” he calls, biting back the _Anna_ that wants to follow.

The door bursts open, Susan grinning brightly, one arm holding Lucy back.

“Good _evening,_ Castiel! Your highness,” she adds, grinning, and Lucy huffs. “I’m terribly sorry to disturb you, but it’s dinner time.”

“Yes,” Lucy agrees. “Best come down—"

“Though it’s horribly crowded! And a couple of the girls aren’t especially comfortable around alpha men.”

“ _Yes,_ so he ought to _lea—"_

“So while we’re _incredibly_ honored to be hosting his highness, would he mind dining with you up here?”

_“Susan_ !” Lucy hisses. “Think of _Alfie_!”

“Alfie’s clearly already _lost,_ ” Susan mutters back, then fixes Cas with a bright smile. “ Anyway, I’d be _more_ than happy to prepare a dinner tray for you.”

“Your time in the attic left you funny in the _head_ —" Lucy starts, but with a well-directed elbow from Susan, stumbles back into the hall before she can finish.

“What do you say?” Susan asks, blinking innocently.

Which — honestly, Cas is _delighted_ by the offer, but -

He can’t help it. His experience with Dean in Lawrence had more of an impact than he thought.

He’s _worried_.

“Why don’t I do it,” he suggests. “It wouldn’t be fair to ask you.”

“Oh, but you seem to be having a very _interesting_ conversation with his highness, and I’d hate to interrupt anymore than I already have,” she insists, shooting their joined hands a gleeful look.

Cas squints at her suspiciously, reluctantly pulling his hand free. He’s never known Susan to be conniving, but he largely keeps to himself, so perhaps he _wouldn’t_ know.

“And I would . . . hate to burden you. Let me at least help.” He stands, before she can protest, offering Dean an apologetic look. “I’ll be back shortly.”

“Oh, but are you _sure_ —"

“Very sure. But thank you,” he adds, quickly making his way to the door. “Shall we?”

“Good _God_ _,_ he’s handsome!” Susan enthuses, as soon as they’ve started down the stairs, throwing an excited look back at him. “ Did he really bring your bathwater from the _river_?”

Cas smiles, relaxing a little.

“Yes. To be fair, he didn’t know there was a tap in the kitchen.”

She snorts.

“Even if he had — a prince, preparing your _bath._ I don’t know how you stood to make him wait outside for it,” she adds with a laugh.

“I didn’t,” Cas assures her, glad to hear this was actually a very reasonable thing, and for some reason, she stumbles.

“You — did you really —"

“I did.”

“But you’re both so — how in God’s name did you fit yourselves into the _tub_? Half of you must have been dangling over the sides!”

Cas gives her a startled look.

“We didn’t. He just watched me.”

Which — she’s absolutely correct that they wouldn’t both fit in that tub, but now Cas is thinking of his bath back in Lawrence, in which the pair of them _would_ both fit, if rather tightly, and though he can see no practical reason to take a bath _together . . ._

Susan’s brows lift.

“He _did_ ?” she breathes, ducking in a little closer once they’ve passed the final step, slowing . “And then . . . and _then_ what happened?”

Cas blinks, shaking himself.

“And then I — dressed, and we talked.”

She draws back, a furrow appearing in her brow.

“You don’t have to censor yourself, Castiel. I won’t be bothered in the least.”

Cas tilts his head.

“I’m not.”

“You — he watched you _bathe_ , and then you — what, sat down to tea?”

“Well, there wasn’t any tea, but — yes? What else would we do?”

Her mouth opens.

“Well, that’s what I wanted to _know_!” she exclaims, lightly smacking his shoulder. “He was supposed to have — swept you out of the tub and laid you out on the bed and gently made love to you! Or — even more exciting things! Anyway, he must have at least _kissed_ you. Tell me about _that_!”

Cas looks down, a little embarrassed.

“No. I asked, but — he didn’t want to.”

Susan freezes.

“He watched you in your bath from start to finish and wouldn’t even — you know, the crown be damned,” she snaps, abruptly pivoting. “What a _cad_ ! Don’t you worry, Castiel, I’ll go let the bastard know _exactly_ what’s what—"

He quickly hooks his arm through hers, pulling her back.

“Susan. He’s not a — cad. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, and it’s understandable if he doesn’t want to kiss me again.”

“Understandable!” she scoffs. “He kept you in his castle for half a _year_! And trust me, if he was kissing you then, he either ought to be kissing you now or leaving your damned door open! He’s a cad, through and through.” She frowns. “Oh. Should we put something in his food?”

Cas gives her a horrified look.

“Absolutely not,” he insists, though there was a reason he wanted to oversee any handling of Dean’s food. “And we always had the door shut, at the castle. It’s fine, Susan. I’m just — happy he’s here.”

She settles a little, at that, though she still looks troubled.

“But — well. Hm.” She hesitates. “You know, food ought to help.”

And then she abruptly squeezes his arm and starts pulling him toward the kitchen.

Dean’s in the middle of awkwardly staring at the table while Lucy glares on when Cas reappears, tray in hand, the girl from earlier behind him.

“Honestly, Lucy, what are you even still doing here?” she scolds, but Lucy just lifts her chin.

“Making sure he doesn’t mark anything. I know how alphas like their taunts.”

Dean scowls.

“Seriously? What do you think I’m gonna do, run around the room rubbing myself on everything he owns?”

“Yes,” she retorts. “I do.”

He rolls his eyes.

“I’m not a _dog_. There’s nothing to gain from that.”

“Except having him pining after you! He’s bad enough off, as it is!”

Cas hastily steps in the room, nudging her aside.

“Lucy. I’m back, so — I will ensure Dean doesn’t . . . ‘mark’ anything,” he says, though he looks puzzled. “I’ve never known him to urinate anywhere inappropriate, for the record.”

Dean coughs.

“That’s really not—"

“Oh, but I’m sure he has done!” Lucy insists. “Alphas, with their drunken _larks,_ that the rest of us always end up having to clean up—"

“Anna was looking for you in the kitchen,” Susan interjects, and Cas gives her a strange look. “Best hurry.”

“Oh.” Lucy looks reluctant. “Well. Alright, then. Be safe, Castiel. Remember, scream your head off if he tries anything. You’re no one’s prisoner here, alright?”

Cas briefly makes a face, but nods.

“Of course. Thank you, Lucy.”

With a short nod — and yet another fucking glare at Dean — Lucy squeezes between them and out into the hall.

“Excellent,” Susan mutters, then claps her hands together and turns toward Dean. “Your highness. Before I go — may I ask a teeny, tiny little question?”

Cas looks at her, curious, and while Dean isn’t, honestly doesn’t want to know — it’s probably another accusation of classless alpha shenanigans — he forces himself to nod, offering her a smile as best he can.

“Sure thing.”

Susan perks up.

“Oh, good. The thing is, I was just wondering — why would you watch him bathe if you weren’t willing to kiss him afterward?”

Dean inhales so fast he chokes on his own saliva.

“I — sorry, _what_ —"

“Susan, _no_ —" Cas starts, but Susan just smiles benignly and presses on.

“Now, as far as _I_ understand it, putting on a show like that would _actually_ warrant some very friendly behavior with a gentleman’s tongue, though I suppose Anna does have a master key, so you’re right to be nervous, but — he _asked_ you to kiss him! How can any man with a conscience decline at least that much, under the circumstances?”

Dean gapes.

“Uh. I — that’s — I just—"

And then he stops, because honestly, where he comes from, a show as nice as the one Cas put on warrants a whole lot more than some ‘friendly behavior’ with your tongue.

(He’s pretty sure Lords have purchased lavish townhomes in the city for less.)

Really, the only excuse Dean has is the damn pink chrysanthemums sitting less than two feet away from him, and if he’s going to pretend he respects them and what they mean, he had no business watching Cas bathe in the first place.

(He definitely had no business _helping._ )

But . . . but Cas seemed like he _wanted_ Dean to, and last night, he’d made Dean promise to listen to him, which — fine, maybe that’s not what he meant, but . . .

But if he’s going to listen to Cas about the bath, then he has no excuse not to listen to him about the kissing, does he?

Except — the bath wasn’t — sure, everybody got a little turned on, but it really wasn’t necessarily a — at least, not like _kissing_ would be, and -

“Your highness?” Susan prompts, one brow a full inch higher than the other. Beside her, Cas looks torn, uncomfortable glance flicking between both her and Dean, like he wants to say something, but like maybe he wants to hear what Dean has to say, too.

Dean swallows, taking a deep breath.

“I think, uh. That’s something I should talk to Cas about? But — thank you for asking.”

She looks equal parts disappointed and satisfied.

“Well. Good. You do that.” After a beat, she nods. “Have a good evening, your highness.”

She turns to go, then abruptly swivels in the doorway, clearing her throat.

“You know, it’s just my two cents, but I think — flowers are meaningless. Any idiot can buy a bouquet, but — it’s all the other things, that count the most.” She studies Cas, suddenly serious. “I — I married the first man that bought me a few bouquets, and by the second bunch, I was having all kinds of second thoughts, too. But my mother told me good girls didn’t lead men on, and that I’d as good as made a promise, so — I married him.” She shakes her head. “I shouldn’t have done it. Even if she threw me out over it, I should have refused. So — if you’ve got doubts — or if you’ve got a good feeling about something else — just listen to yourself. Understood?”

Cas is quiet for a moment, probably as startled by this unprompted speech as Dean is — and then he turns slightly, looking straight at _Dean_.

“Yes. I understand.”

Susan nods.

“Good.” Abruptly, the cheer slips back into her face, and she grins. “ _Well_ , then — you boys enjoy yourselves.”

And with a final wink at Cas — although Cas is still staring at Dean, tray gripped tight — she scoots out the door and shuts it right behind her.

In the silence, they stare at one another for a moment longer.

“Here,” Dean finally says, quickly pushing his chair back and standing. “Let me get that.”

Cas doesn’t say a word as he approaches, still staring, but nor does he protest when Dean takes the tray.

“On the bed, please,” he finally says, just as Dean’s turned back around, and although a part of Dean still isn’t sure what he’s going to say or if sitting on the bed together is really okay, the fact is, Dean already watched him sensually run a soapy washcloth all across his naked body and — more importantly — it’s Cas’s room and Cas’s rules, here.

He’ll sit on the damn bed, if that’s what Cas wants.

He sets down the tray while Cas settles in on the other side, and once they’re seated and Dean’s hastily picked the cabbage out of Cas’s vegetables, he offers him a plate.

Cas looks at it, a dip in his brow, and doesn’t take it.

“Cas?”

For a moment, Cas doesn’t answer.

And then:

“Why _don’t_ you want to kiss me? Bear in mind, I don’t expect you to, but — Susan seemed to think if you liked watching me bathe, you — you would like to kiss me.”

Dean hesitates, then sets Cas’s plate back on the tray, though he’s still not sure how to answer that.

“Right. We, uh. We should — talk about that. And the — bathing thing.”

Cas frowns.

“Why do we need to talk about the bath?”

Dean lifts his shoulders slightly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Just . . . I’m not sure we didn’t — I don’t know, cross a line.”

When he glances back up, Cas is squinting at him.

“I don’t understand. And what does the bath have to do with kissing?”

Dean makes a face.

“They’re — you do them for the same reasons. Uh. At least — I did.”

Cas studies him with interest.

“So . . . watching me was as enjoyable as kissing?”

Dean blinks.

“Uh. Well — I mean, in some ways, but — not in others, ‘cause kissing is — although I, uh, I did really like — but that’s neither here nor there, Cas, the point is—"

“What did you like, Dean?” Cas interrupts, intent and utterly guileless, as far as Dean can tell.

Dean swallows.

“About — watching you? Or — kissing you?”

Cas just nods, eyes fixed to Dean’s.

“Both.”

“Oh. Well. You, uh. You looked really good, in your bath.” He clears his throat. “Felt good, too, when I was washing your hair. Made me wish I could touch you,” he adds absently, thinking back to Cas, the weight of his head in Dean’s hands, hair slick and soapy as Dean slid his fingers through it, pressing into Cas’s scalp, trying to make it good for him . . .

“Touch me how?”

Dean blinks.

“The way you were touching yourself,” he says honestly, because sitting on the bed and keeping his hands to himself was the worst kind of torture, and Dean would have given just about anything to have Cas offer him that goddamn cloth, to be the one slowly drawing it over his skin while Cas shifted and turned, offering him access to every gorgeous inch of skin on his body.

To wash, of course.

“You only offered to help with my back,” Cas points out, and he almost sounds — _disappointed_. “I had to ask for help with my hair.”

Dean sucks in a breath.

“Would you have let me do anything else?”

Cas tilts his head.

“I would have let you do everything else.”

Heat pools in Dean’s stomach.

“Yeah?”

Cas’s eyes narrow.

“Yes. What do you like about kissing me?”

“Everything,” Dean says automatically, and Cas looks startled. “I like — how you feel. In my arms, under my hands — I would have loved to do everything to you.” Dean licks his lips, caught on the way Cas is just — _staring_ at him. Then he remembers to add, “As far as your bath went, I mean. You just, uh. You feel really good, Cas. Feels like we fit perfectly. And — in case you forgot again — I think you smell fucking amazing.”

Cas gives him a sharp look.

“That’s not what you said before.”

“What? What did I say before?”

“You said ‘nice.’”

Dean shrugs.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t wanna creep you out.”

“How would that ‘creep’ me out?”

“You’d think I was thinking about you. Like that.”

“Like what?”

Dean gives him a suspicious look.

“Like I wanted to do things to you.”

“What kinds of things?” Cas presses, and Dean huffs a laugh.

“Soaping you down with a washcloth and kissing you.”

Cas nods slowly.

“And . . . that’s what you want to do when you think someone smells ‘fucking amazing.’”

Dean smiles slightly.

“Yeah. A lot of the time, at least.”

Cas says nothing for a long moment, just staring.

Dean furrows his brow.

“Cas?”

“Sorry. I was thinking about helping you bathe.” He nods to himself, then stills, quickly adding, “I want to do that.”

Dean closes his eyes.

“Awesome,” he mumbles.

“Susan said — she thought you might have, um, swept me out of the tub and laid me on the bed and ‘made love’ to me.”

Dean opens his eyes, staring.

“Uh.”

“In a few of the novels on my bookcase — ‘making love’ is what they do when the kissing scene abruptly stops,” Cas continues, watching him. “For a long time, I’ve suspected it meant intercourse.”

“Yeah,” Dean says faintly. “It, uh. It does mean intercourse.”

“Why do they call it that? Intercourse doesn’t have anything to do with love.”

“Sometimes it does,” Dean protests. “When — when people have — feelings.”

“Feelings,” Cas repeats. “You mean when they’re in love.”

“Yeah.”

“So . . . you’d only ‘make love’ to me if you were _in_ love with me,” Cas says slowly. “And I’d only let you, because I was in love with you.”

Dean nods, a surge of wistfulness joining that low, building heat.

“Yeah. That — that’d be how it went.”

“But you didn’t.”

Dean hesitates.

“No. I didn’t.”

Cas nods, looking down.

“Well,” he says in a small voice. “Alphas often bed omegas they aren’t in love with.”

“Uh. Yeah, they do, although — that’s not really relevant here.”

“Of course.” Cas clears his throat. “But — you like kissing me.”

“Well, yeah, Cas.”

“Then . . . why don’t you?”

Dean looks away.

“That, uh. That’s the thing. For the same reason I shouldn’t really be kissing you, I shouldn’t have watched you bathe. Or touched you at all.”

“And that reason is . . .?”

Dean sighs. Fucking New Eden and their educational gaps.

“Because — you’re not mine. And — you’re not going to be.”

Cas falls silent.

“Did you not kiss any of the omegas you bedded before?”

Dean quickly lifts his head, scowling.

“Of course I kissed all the people I’ve bedded, I’m not a dick.”

Cas nods slowly.

“And do you still have any of them?”

“What? No — no, we were all just — young people having a good time.”

“So they’re not yours, and they never were.” Cas swallows. “What makes me different?”

Dean stares.

“You — because you — because of everything, Cas. This — what you and I are, it — it’s not like those times. It’s not really like anything. And — and I have no idea what to do.”

Cas just looks at him, a little sad and a lot frustrated.

“Sam and Charlie said that as long as I want to kiss you, and you want to kiss me — that’s all that’s required for it to happen.”

_And they couldn’t have given you the goddamn infidelity talk at the same time?_ he almost asks, but he’s pretty sure Cas will just squint and give him a head tilt, and Dean’s not sure he can stomach saying _we can’t kiss and we can’t touch and we can’t do any of the other things I want to do because not only are you not mine, you’re going to be someone else’s._

Although — Susan had a point. It’s not a promise, not really; the whole point behind a courtship is to give it time, to see if it’s going to work — to make sure it’s what everybody really wants.

You’re allowed to change your mind, and — you’re allowed to want something else.

Except — hand-built cabin fantasies aside, Dean’s not gonna foist the crown off onto Sam, and he’s not sure the council won’t hunt them down and punish him and Cas both if he tries, and the fact remains that Cas was _interested_ in marrying Samandriel, even knowing he had choices.

Even after everything that had happened with Dean.

Dean slept next to a poor charcoal-and-paper substitute for the last month-and-a-half and carefully avoided thinking about the council’s plans for him, because every time he thought of doing _anything_ with someone else, it made him sick.

Hell, Dean’s not even sure Cas can _choose_ something like that right now, regardless of who it is; he thought he’d find a healthy, happy Cas, one with the smile always in his eyes, one who was overjoyed to be back with his beloved sister, was excited by the future full of options and opportunities he finally had.

He _didn’t_ , though. Instead, Cas just seems tired and lost and _sad,_ and he’s courting with one guy and then turning around and asking another one to kiss him — asking like it’s something he _needs._

The happiest, the most _present_ Cas has looked since Dean got here was probably — Christ, it was probably when he let Dean watch him _bathe_.

“You really want me to kiss you?” Dean finally asks, studying him carefully, trying not to let any of his own stupid feelings cloud his judgment, not his longing or his doubts.

Cas just looks confused, and maybe a little distressed.

“Of course I do,” he says, like it’s the most obvious, logical thing in the world, and Dean just — fuck. He has no clue how to take that, or what to do about it, or if he should even be having this conversation in the first place.

“Can I think about it?” he asks, still searching, and Cas hesitates.

“You mean . . . you want time to decide.”

“Yeah. Just the night,” he assures him. “Just — let me sleep on it. Is that — is that okay?”

Cas’s lips quirk, something strange in his face.

“Yes. I would never make you kiss me. Though — even if you wanted ten years to decide, Dean — I’ll always want to kiss you.”

Dean inhales sharply.

“Cas . . . you know, even in the rest of Winchester — you’re not allowed to kiss other people, once you’re mated? Or married? Not — not unless your mate tells you you can.”

Cas cocks his head.

“Alright. But I’m not mated.”

“But in ten years, you will be. Less than that.”

Cas’s brow dips.

And then he looks down, just barely shaking his head.

“No,” he says softly. “Even if I’m allowed to, now — I’ll never be mated.”

Dean blinks.

“But — what about—"

“Please think about it,” Cas interrupts, still not looking at him. “Whatever you decide, that’s fine, though I still don’t understand what you’re trying to say, but — I would like to kiss you again, before we say goodbye.”

Dean’s heart sinks a little, at that.

“So . . . it’ll be a, uh. A goodbye kiss, huh?”

Cas shrugs.

“If that’s what I can have.”

And Cas says he doesn’t understand, but Dean — Dean’s pretty sure he doesn’t understand, either.

“In any case,” Cas says abruptly, looking up, expression suddenly neutral. “We should eat.”

And with that, he reaches for the cabbage-free plate and a fork, and when Dean eventually remembers to pick up his own plate and join him, they share their meal in silence.

“You practiced admirable restraint,” Cas grudgingly remarks, when Anna appears shortly after Dean has left.

Alex knocked an hour after dinner, when conversation was suddenly awkward and Dean’s smiles weren’t quite reaching his eyes (or, worse, were sad when they did), and apologetically reminded him that guests needed to be out by eight.

Cas walked him down, and Dean paused at the door, looking at Cas for what seemed like both a very long time and not quite long enough.

_You mind if we_ _pick you up at nine_ _?_ he’d finally asked.

_Whatever you want,_ Cas had answered honestly, some sort of knot having formed in his stomach, and Dean’s expression had turned strange.

But then he’d told Cas he’d see him in the morning, and after another long pause, one that still feels somehow empty, even now that he’s time and distance away from it, Dean had turned around and left.

Cas had grown to hate that part, at the castle.

He hates it even more, now.

Anyway, Anna just sighs, flopping onto the bed next to him.

“Yes, well, we established it was _your_ choice, which meant it wasn’t mine _,_ so _yes._ I ‘practiced admirable restraint.’”

“Still. I expected you to go back on your word.”

Anna’s quiet for moment, giving him a long, inscrutable look.

Then she furrows her brow and takes a deep breath.

“When I say I want what’s best for you,” she starts, abruptly serious. “I mean it. I know it doesn’t seem like it to you, but — I do. And whether you recognize it or not — I think he _has_ hurt you, Cas. And I think he’ll hurt you again.”

Cas huffs. Of course — restraint or not, Anna was bound to come back with more of the same.

“He won’t,” he counters firmly, and she shrugs, surprisingly unperturbed.

“That would be nice. The point is — you’re right that it _is_ your choice, and at the end of the day — we’ve all been hurt, Cas. But the whole reason Mills Park does what it does is because we _survive_ our hurts, and even if we shouldn’t have to — we can come back stronger and better, afterward.” She smiles slightly, though she looks a little sad. “And if you want to risk this hurt — that’s your choice. It might _feel_ like it later, but it’s not the end of the world. You could sleep with him and end up keeping one of his bastards — though please don’t _—_ and it still won’t be the end of the world. It won’t be the end of _you_. We’ll make it work.”

Cas hesitates.

In a way, Anna _is_ correct. Cas was always afraid Dean would hurt him; not intentionally — never intentionally — but that parting with him would, ultimately, leave the worst scars.

Still, he shakes his head. That’s not something either one of them can help, and it’s far too late to try.

“He’s not going to, Anna.”

She nods, reaching for his hand and squeezing.

“I hope you’re right.”

It’s only when she bids him good night and he curls up in the dark, scenting the bedding for traces of Dean’s scent, that he realizes.

Dean didn’t hug him, like he did last night.

Which means that there’s very little hope for Dean’s decision regarding anything more.

Still —

Cas shuts his eyes and pretends it doesn’t really matter.

“Is it, uh. Is it — is it cheating if you just let someone watch?”

Charlie’s bedtime snack cake ends up halfway back on her plate, and Sam sputters through his sip of tea for a good ten seconds before either one of them can manage a response.

“ _Excuse_ me?”

Dean hesitates.

“I — tonight, I, uh. I watched Cas take his bath.”

“Uh. Like, with his permission, or did you somehow climb up to the third floor window and—"

“ _Dude_. No. He asked me to.”

“Oh.” She hums. “Interesting.”

Dean clears his throat, a little afraid of what’s going to come of that shrewd, thoughtful expression.

“Kissing is definitely off the table. Right? Even if you’re not engaged yet — if you’re in the middle of a courtship, you don’t — you can’t kiss other people. Can you? Unless — he said — I think it’s about the whole goodbye thing. Is that — is that part of closure? Kissing me again?”

Sam gives him an incredibly disappointed look.

“You didn’t talk to him about Samandriel, did you?”

Dean hesitates.

“Well — no. It seemed — I don’t know, awkward.”

“Dean, he asked you watch him _bathe_. How is it more awkward to ask about the guy who’s _courting_ him?”

“I don’t know! It just is!” Dean makes a face at his teacup. “Which — that’s the other thing. He said — tonight, Cas said he’d _never_ be mated.”

Sam and Charlie both straighten, exchanging looks.

“He _did_?”

“Yeah. Which — he _sounded_ pretty sure about that, not like he’d just decided or anything, but if he really feels that way, then why did he—" Dean cuts off, a terrible thought occurring to him. “He knows the courtship is for mating _and_ marriage, right? Shit — how the hell do they even _do_ things in New Eden? Is there a difference there? Like, maybe marriage means something different? What if Cas doesn’t even know what he’s agreeing to?”

Charlie squints at him.

“Seriously?”

Dean scowls.

“I’m just _saying._ He’s smart as hell, but there’s a lot he doesn’t know, and you can’t expect him to figure it all out in a couple of months.”

“Right, but they made it to the second bouquet, dude. Someone would have explained it to him by now, even if he didn’t know to start with.” She shakes her head. “Nope, you know what _probably_ happened?”

“What?”

“ _You_ showed up, idiot. And he realized that _maybe,_ settling for the cutie just barely out of nursery school wasn’t as great a decision as he thought.”

Dean looks down, troubled.

“Really? But is — is letting some asshole who kept you prisoner change your mind really a good decision, either? Seriously, he might just be _confused_. Especially since I washed his hair, and he could probably tell I was turned on — I could tell _he_ was turned on — maybe I accidentally—"

Charlie holds up a hand, Sam looking aghast beside her.

“Woah, woah, hold up,” she interjects, lifting her brows. “You did what, now?”

Dean looks away, guilty.

“Washed his hair. He asked,” he adds quickly, omitting the part where he was so desperate to get his hands on Cas he kind of asked first. “But — fuck. Maybe I should have waited outside.”

“No, you should have ravished him, promised to make an honest omega out of him, and then ravished him again,” she says darkly. “Then we could _all_ be having tea right now.”

God, what Dean wouldn’t give for that to have been an option.

“Charlie. You know I can’t. The council is — they’re already looking for a noblewoman, for chrissakes.”

She scowls even harder.

“Fine,” she mutters. “But seriously — there’s no way he’s marrying the kid, Dean.”

“Maybe not, but — how can I be sure?”

They both stare.

“By . . . asking him?” Sam says, faintly disbelieving, and Dean huffs.

“Even if the answer is ‘no’ tomorrow, the answer was ‘yes’ last night. But — _I_ never changed my mind. Not once.” He shrugs. “I just — I don’t know if it would be right. Doing anything more. Or if I should be feeling guilty about what I already did.”

“Right, but — you kind of _did_ change your mind,” Sam points out. “You were going to run away with him before he left, remember? And then you decided to never see him again. And _then_ you decided you wanted to say goodbye, after all. So . . . why isn’t Cas allowed to change _his_ mind?”

“I — because I’m just trying to do what’s best for him!”

“Right, but — maybe he’s trying to do what’s best for him, too? And if he thought you didn’t want him anymore . . . it’s not like he’s a future king, Dean. And he’s been through a lot. I don’t really think you can judge him for this.”

“The kid is pretty sweet,” Charlie grudgingly adds, and Dean slumps.

“What am I even deciding here, guys? I can’t — I can’t marry him. I can’t even mate him. The best I can offer is, ‘hey, in a couple years when I’m done having kids with someone else, maybe I could spend a weekend every month with you?’ Who the fuck would agree to that?”

“Well, no one,” Charlie says bluntly, “But mating and marriage aren’t everything, and — what if Cas came back to the castle?”

“That’s _two years,_ Charlie. Even if he thinks he wants me now, he won’t in two years.”

“Oh, sure, and if I said _you_ wouldn’t want him in two years?”

“That’s not the same thing—"

“It totally is, and that’s why mating and marriage _aren’t_ everything. He was happy with you, in Lawrence. And that was when he couldn’t even leave his room on his own! If you let him roam the streets of the city and tavern-hop with Pamela and come home to his garden and _you_ every night?” She shrugs. “I don’t think Cas is the type to ask for much more than that.”

“He deserves more,” Dean argues, sullen, and she snorts.

“More than awesome friends, every creature comfort you can think of, and someone as stupidly head over heels for him as he is for them? Dude, the bite’s practically worthless, in comparison. Stop being old-fashioned.”

Which _might_ be a valid argument, but-

“How do I know?” Dean mumbles, staring at the coffee table. “How do I know what he really wants?”

There’s a pause.

And then:

“You ask him,” Sam says gently. “And then you listen to him.”

“But what if it turns out to be the wrong thing?”

“Well — then it does. But — you _can’t_ know. Neither of you can. It’s why you both just have to make a choice.”

It sounds good, and it probably makes perfect sense to Sam’s naive, optimistic twenty-one-year-old brain, but-

Dean knows better.

When you make the wrong choice, you pay for it.

And if he doesn’t go to Cas tomorrow and flat-out tell him _no,_ if he really has the nerve to give him what he asks for, never mind thinking of any kind of future-

Dean’s not sure it’ll be a price either of them can afford to pay.

Cas is waiting by the door at eight-thirty, and he’s pleased when Dean’s carriage rolls into the drive ten minutes earlier than promised. He wastes no time letting himself out the front, striding into the crisp, golden morning as the door to the carriage opens and Charlie leaps out of it.

“Well, good morning!” she exclaims, beaming, then darts forward and launches herself at him. He catches her with open arms, stumbling a little, though he carries her forward a couple of feet before setting her down, trying not to look too distracted by any other occupants of the carriage.

He’s already promised himself he’s going to wait for Dean to bring it up, in case he’s not done thinking. A part of him thinks he’d rather get the bad news over with, but another part of him doesn’t want it to spoil the pleasure of their outing (and a quiet, more ashamed part kind of hopes that he’ll somehow manage to do something more to convince Dean).

“Good morning, Charlie,” he says, and before he can try and catch a glimpse of Dean, as if he’ll somehow be able to tell the answer just by looking, Sam is suddenly hopping down from the box, removing his hat with a grin.

“Hey, Cas. How are you doing?”

“Good,” he says, surprised. “How are you? Are you going to drive us?”

“I’m pretty good,” Sam says brightly. “And yeah, it’s beautiful today, so I thought I would.”

Charlie smiles, giving Cas another squeeze.

“Right, and _I’m_ just gonna sit up there and keep him company, if that’s okay. I get claustrophobic.” She winks. “You know how it is.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,” Cas manages, and he is, although he’s considerably less sorry to hear that he’ll be alone with Dean inside the carriage. “Of course, you should do whatever makes you the most comfortable.”

Much as the prospect makes him feel even _more_ nervous, and much as he’s becoming a little worried he won’t see Sam and Charlie at all on this visit — he can’t help the thrill of anticipation he feels, suddenly eager to get in.

Still, when Sam offers a hand to help him—

“Before I forget,” Cas starts, though he takes it, grasping firmly. “I’d like to offer my condolences, Sam.”

Sam’s smile falters.

“Your condolences?”

Cas hesitates. Perhaps he shouldn’t bring it up?

“On your horse,” he finally says, soft, and there’s a strangled noise from inside the carriage, like Dean is trying to cover a sneeze, perhaps. Cas hopes he’s not sick. “I was — tremendously distressed to hear what you’d gone through.”

Sam opens his mouth, then shuts it, glancing toward the carriage.

“My — my horse,” he eventually manages, and Cas is dismayed at the way he stumbles over the words. “Um. Which horse is that?”

Cas draws back slightly.

“I — have you lost more than one?” Dean _had_ mentioned plague . . . “I was referring to Mary — your beloved family horse, named for your mother? Dean said she had to be, um, put down.”

Sam’s eyes get progressively wider, as he speaks, and Cas suddenly regrets mentioning it. He wishes Dean had told him Sam wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

“Ah,” Charlie says after a moment, and Cas looks at her, hoping for direction. She’s blinking at the ground, a blank sort of expression on her face. “Mary. Good, wonderful Mary. A true paragon of horses.”

Guilt washes over him.

Charlie must have loved the horse, as well, and neither one of them were prepared to be confronted with their grief this morning.

“I — I apologize,” he says quickly, glancing between them. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, no,” Sam says hastily, squeezing Cas’s hand. “That — I just — it’s just such a shock to me, still. About Mary. But — thank you so much, Cas, that — I appreciate that.”

Cas hesitates, searching his face. There’s still something distinctly uncomfortable about it, but his smile looks sincere, and Cas relaxes slightly.

“If you’re sure. And . . . if — if you _would_ like to talk about her, Sam, I’ll gladly listen.”

Sam swallows.

“Oh — oh, no, Cas, that — you know, that’s really, um, sweet of you, but — I, um . . .”

“The pain is still too fresh,” Charlie interjects, solemn. “But that’s super nice of you to offer. You’re such a good, kind, _honest_ soul,” she adds brightly, and Cas shakes his head.

“Not at all. I just wish there was something I could do for you.”

Sam clears his throat.

“Well, why don’t we just, um, try to enjoy ourselves today?”

“For Mary,” Charlie adds, and Sam gives her a sharp look.

“Right. For — Mary, I guess.” He takes a deep breath. “All set?”

Cas nods, putting his foot on the step and, at last, allows himself to look at Dean.

Dean is sitting rather stiffly, staring at his lap, cheeks a little flushed and hands clasped tightly together, and Cas hopes this doesn’t mean he’s in one of his odd moods this morning.

He tries not to frown.

“Yes,” he remembers to say, offering Sam a small smile, and with that, he climbs inside, settling on the bench opposite Dean. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing, Cas. Shout if you guys need anything,” he adds, and then smoothly shuts the door.

The interior of the carriage is strangely silent, though Cas can still hear the birds, chirping away outside.

He watches Dean for a moment, suddenly unsure.

“’Morning,” Dean says abruptly, still looking at his lap. “That, uh. That was — nice of you, to remember about the horse.”

The carriage jostles a little, no doubt Sam and Charlie climbing onto the perch.

“Well, it seemed important, although — I wondered if I should have brought it up.”

Dean coughs.

“Yeah, Sam’s — you know, he’s sensitive, but — he appreciated it, I promise.”

“If you say so.”

At last, Dean glances up, an oddly reluctant smile pulling at his lips.

“I do, Cas.”

Cas smiles back.

“Good morning, Dean,” he finally remembers to say, and Dean chuckles, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“How’s it going?”

Cas hesitates, and the carriage starts moving, causing Dean to sway forward slightly.

“Good,” he eventually says, studying him. “And you?”

Dean lifts his shoulders.

“Good,” he echoes, and Cas nods.

“Ah.”

They’re quiet a moment, the clatter of the drive’s cobblestones fading into a quieter rhythm as they turn onto the road.

“So—"

“Have you decided?” Cas blurts out, unable to help himself.

Dean stares, eyes wide.

“Uh.”

Cas quickly looks down, cursing his impatience.

“It’s fine if you haven’t. We can discuss it later.” He clears his throat. “It’s, um. It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”

Dean says nothing for a long moment.

Cas wishes he had been capable of the same.

“Can I ask—" Dean starts, then stops, and when Cas finally manages to lift his gaze, Dean’s watching him, troubled, that awful dip in his brow.

Cas’s stomach drops.

“What?” he forces himself to ask.

Dean hesitates.

“Why’d you agree to let Samandriel court you?”

Cas blinks, struggling to parse the words. They’re not what he was expecting, certainly, but more importantly-

“I — didn’t?”

The troubled look melts into surprise.

“What? But — you — the _chrysanthemums_.”

Which — Cas supposes flowers are sometimes offered during courtships, and he _does_ remember chrysanthemums appearing in some of the novels, though the courtships there are incredibly unconventional, as far as he can tell.

But even so . . . Anna _told_ him Samandriel had no intention of doing so.

“Yes, but — that’s not what they mean.”

Dean makes a face.

“Uh. It totally is, Cas. White chrysanthemums to initiate courtship, pink ones to make sure it’s still going well, and red to seal the deal. Sure, it’s kinda falling out of fashion, these days, but — everyone knows that.”

Cas stares.

“Well, I’m certainly not an expert on Winchester’s traditions, but — I can assure you, Samandriel and I aren’t courting.”

Dean’s brows climb.

“Dude, does _he_ know that?”

“Yes. He must — Anna _told_ him.”

“Okay, well, maybe you wanna double-check, because that’s _always_ what they mean, Cas.” Dean scrubs a hand down his face. “Christ. I — I thought you were gonna _marry_ him.”

“You thought I was—" Cas starts, then halts, staring. “Dean. Is that why you wouldn’t kiss me?”

Dean drops his hand, startled.

“No. I mean — yes — except, no, things are just — complicated, but—"

“I thought I told you I’d never mate.”

“Right, but — I thought maybe you were confused—"

“I’m not. I’ve never been confused.” Cas frowns, leaning forward, eyes on Dean’s. “I’m not going to mate Samandriel, or anyone else. Nor am I going to marry them.”

“I mean — you don’t _know_ that—"

“I know.”

“Right, but you’ve only been free two—"

“I think I’m going to spend my whole life bound, one way or another. The prison just changes.”

Dean’s mouth shuts, and he stares.

Cas takes a deep breath.

“You said your other omegas — that you were just ‘young people, having a good time.’”

“Dude, they weren’t _my_ —" Dean sputters, but Cas ignores him.

“I’m young, Dean. But I’m getting older, and Anna says — we never got to be young, the way other people are. And she’s right. I want to have a ‘good time.’” He hesitates, then adds, a little uncertain, “I — I deserve to.”

He’s not sure he believes that, but as long as Dean does—

Cas doesn’t really care what he _deserves,_ at this point.

“That — fine, that’s true, but—" Dean looks pained. “I’m not sure I’m the good time you should be having, man.”

Cas grits his teeth.

“So? According to everyone else, I’m where I am because people did things they shouldn’t have. So why can’t I do something _I_ shouldn’t, for a change?”

“Because it might _hurt_ you.”

“At least this time it will be me doing it,” Cas retorts, and Dean grimaces.

“Cas—"

“I’m not asking to be like your others, Dean,” Cas insists. “But you said you enjoyed kissing me, and I want you to, and I’m never going to be anyone else’s, so — _kiss me._ ”

Dean goes quiet at that, just looking at Cas.

“Please,” Cas adds, and just in case Dean thinks he expects too much — “Just once more. That’s all I ask.”

Dean hesitates, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.

“Just once,” he repeats, and Cas quickly nods.

“Just once,” he promises. Even when Dean figured him for an assassin, he almost never denied him a request.

If there is no future mate, making it somehow ‘wrong,’ if Cas can just convince Dean that he’s as qualified to make a decision now as he’s ever going to be—

Just once more, Cas will take advantage.

For a long, fraught moment, Dean just stares at him.

And then—

“No,” he finally says.

Cas draws back.

“Oh,” is all he can bring himself to say, and Dean licks his lips.

“Not just once,” he adds, soft.

And then he slides off the bench, kneeling in the aisle, and when Cas just stares down at him, heart suddenly fast and unsteady between his ribs, Dean sort of smiles.

Then he reaches up, gently fitting his palm to the back of Cas’s neck—

And pulls him in for a kiss.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: comedic (but very tame) references to sex dungeons, please let me know if I forgot anything.
> 
> BY THE WAY, if you like Cas outfits and Cas being gorgeous and you recall something about some pretty yellow drawers, [this](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/post/617028205279379456/diminuel-cas-in-drawers-was-requested-cas-in) amazing thing [Diminuel](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/) drew may be of great interest to you!!! :DD

In life, Cas likes to think he has, actually, wanted very little.

Ever since he was a child, all he’s quietly asked the universe for is peace and safety, work he can tolerate, and to stay with his sister — to keep what little affection had already been allotted to him.

More than he deserved, to most people’s thinking, but still — not so much. Not compared to what he could be asking for, to what others simply had the privilege of expecting.

But _despite_ the modesty of his desires — he doesn’t remember getting most of them.

And even though he _asked_ for this, asked more times than he should have, asked when, perhaps, he shouldn’t have been asking at all _—_ and even though he was desperately hopeful, every time he did—

Dean’s hand on his neck, gently tugging, and Dean’s mouth, sweetly pressed to his, comes as an absolute surprise.

Cas makes a strangled noise, and to his horror, Dean immediately pulls back.

“No?” he whispers, eyes searching, and still, it takes Cas another moment to overcome his shock.

Dean begins to retreat, warmth drawing away, awful things creeping into his face, things like _worry_ and _disappointment_ and _regret,_ and panic seizes Cas.

“Yes,” he corrects quickly.

And then he ducks forward, catching Dean’s lips against his own once more.

This time, Dean is the one to freeze.

“Yes,” Cas mumbles again, in case he didn’t hear, and perhaps he didn’t, because as soon as the word has left his mouth a second time—

Dean sucks in a breath and surges forward, lips firm as they move over Cas’s, one hand fisting in the nicest shirt they brought from Lawrence, the other sliding into his hair, grip warm and grounding and designed to keep Cas within kissing distance on all counts.

_Unnecessary,_ Cas thinks, the touch sparking through what feels like every nerve in his body, because kissing Dean is _like_ that, is a thing you do with one small, unexceptional part of yourself and feel throughout every other, in impossible, extraordinary ways, and Cas would never need to be held in place for it.

He would need to be moved in order to _stop_ it, and Dean is the only one whose command to do so he would follow.

Cas leans forward, moves into it, tilts his head and parts his lips and relishes the way Dean’s fingers curl in his hair, pressing into his scalp as Dean pushes right back and licks against him, into him, the feel and taste of it somehow _familiar,_ because despite everything, Cas has been kissed by Dean before and now, by some miracle, it’s happening again.

_Just once,_ Cas had said. _Just once more._

He’s more devious than anyone gave him credit for, because that was a lie.

Cas wants as many as he can get, and he knows, in his bones, that he’s going to try and have them.

Dean’s tongue presses inside, slow and searching, and Cas shudders from the feel of it, from the pleasure of _all_ of it, and when he instinctively responds, tongue tangling with Dean’s, and _feels_ the soft sound Dean makes as they slide together, all heat and wet and softness between them-

He can’t help it. A ferocious sort of _need_ sweeps through him, desperate and overwhelming, and suddenly, none of it’s enough.

He tears himself away with a strangled noise, seizes Dean by his jacket lapels, and lurches forward.

They go crashing into the aisle, and Dean’s back hits the edge of the bench, eliciting a grunt of pain as Cas tumbles after him, his own knees landing hard against the floor of the carriage as he narrowly avoids knocking his head into the edge.

“Son of a _bitch,_ ” Dean curses, and Cas hastily straightens, sitting back against his thighs and peering down at him with concern, hand still twisted in his jacket.

“Are you—" he starts, breathless, though the urgency has abated somewhat, but before he can finish—

Dean bursts into laughter.

And then, still laughing, green eyes bright, he reaches up, that hand slipping back over Cas’s neck, thumb grazing the curls just above it.

“See?” he chuckles, grinning up at him. “What’d I tell you? We fit perfect, Cas.”

Cas has the peculiar sensation of calming, even as a riot abruptly begins within.

He swallows, nodding. Dean’s grip on his neck tightens on reflex with the gesture, and that astonishing need immediately flares in response.

“Yes,” Cas manages. “We do.”

And then he clasps Dean’s face in both of his hands and kisses him, open and fierce, until the smile fades and Dean is tugging, futilely pulling at him like he, too, is somehow desperate to be closer, and even though he must be terribly uncomfortable, knees bent and back curled awkwardly against the other seat—

Cas doesn’t give him breath to complain.

He’s not sure how much time passes like that, the world beginning and ending in the carriage, with Dean warm underneath him and around him and tasting of some sort of abstract perfection, mouth moving hotly over Cas’s and breath warm at each break, lashes tickling against Cas’s cheeks as the angles change and his pleasure somehow _grows,_ somehow becomes a whole-body tingle beneath his skin, some vague, pressing desire for _more_ as Dean’s hands mark a clever, wonderful path across his chest and arms and back and hair, only to begin again.

But eventually, there’s a soft creak and then the light in the carriage seems to brighten, even with Cas’s eyes shut, and though he makes an unhappy noise, gripping Dean’s head harder, insistently pushing against his lap like it will somehow help him stay there — though Dean makes a somewhat distracting noise, when he does so, and Cas experiences a strange thrill, himself — the light inhales sharply and then simultaneously groans and bursts into laughter.

“ _Really,_ Dean? That’s not _safe._ ”

Cas slows his frantic kissing, disturbed. Fond of Sam though he is, hearing his voice interject when Cas is very happily kissing Dean is hardly desirable.

Still, he’s willing to power through, but-

Dean abruptly turns his head with a gasp, and Cas suddenly finds himself with a mouthful of Dean’s hair.

He draws back, disgruntled, and sees Dean flushed and grinning, hair in disarray and lips red and swollen, his cravat an utter disaster where it hangs uneven and crumpled against his waistcoat.

Cas blinks, startled by his destructive handiwork, and waits for the guilt to come.

There is only a slow, warm satisfaction, spreading leisurely through him.

“Sorry,” Dean pants, and the hand on Cas’s hip squeezes, a very interesting distraction that just makes Cas want to kiss him again— “Can we, uh. Can we get a minute to straighten out?”

There’s another giggle, followed by a long-suffering sigh. A part of Cas would _like_ to see Sam’s face — he makes very amusing faces, after all — but the top button of Dean’s shirt has somehow been pulled free, and with Dean turned to the side, Cas finds himself caught on the way the sharp line of his jaw turns swiftly into a compelling expanse of smooth, tanned throat-

The carriage door slams shut, and Dean sighs, turning back to Cas.

Their noses bump.

Cas’s eyes widen.

“Hi,” Dean whispers.

“Hello,” Cas says back, on reflex, and Dean smiles.

And then he tilts his chin up and starts kissing him again.

The next time the carriage door opens, Sam firmly helps both of them out and straightens their cravats himself.

It’s late morning and they’ve just left the sweets shop, Sam attempting to eat a caramel apple right off the stick while Charlie eggs him on and Cas watches in morbid fascination, when Dean suddenly seizes Cas’s arm, pulling him to a stop.

“Hey, you mind, uh, distracting those two, while I circle back for something?”

Cas tilts his head. Dean has ducked in close, voice lowered, and it would be very easy for a selfish and unscrupulous person in Cas’s position to turn just a little bit more and kiss him.

“For what?” he asks, studying Dean’s mouth.

Dean’s quiet for a minute.

He licks his lips.

“I said distract _them,_ Cas.”

Cas isn’t any judge of such things, but he thinks Dean has a very beautiful mouth. It’s attractive at all times, in fact, whether speaking or laughing or smiling, or even covered in sticky pie filling, patchwork smears of fruit across the bow. It’s even attractive when twisted and sullen, though Cas never likes what accompanies that.

It’s _especially_ attractive, reddened and even fuller than usual, soft from kisses.

“ _Cas,_ ” Dean mutters. “I would — God, do I want to, but — we’re in public.”

Cas gives him a sharp look.

“You would . . . what?”

Dean narrows his eyes.

“Kiss you.”

Cas blinks.

“What’s wrong with being in public?” he asks quickly, and Dean huffs, though his lips twitch.

“It’s public, that’s what’s wrong.”

Cas squints.

“Ah, thank you for being clear. I understand.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Cas.”

“Dean.”

“ _Look_ . We — there’s stuff we have to talk about, and people _you_ have to talk to, and even if it was fine to hold hands and make out in the middle of the street under normal conditions — people talk.”

“So?”

“They’ll talk about _you._ ”

“They already talk about me.”

Dean looks a little taken aback, but then he frowns.

“Well, then they’ll talk even more. And it won’t be good.”

Cas makes a face.

“What could they possibly say about it?”

Dean coughs.

“ _Anyway,_ the point is, no kissing in public, Sam and Charlie are staring at us, and I gotta run back and take care of a thing. Tell them I had to go find a bathroom or something.”

Cas scowls, but Dean just lifts his brows, unimpressed.

“You’re unpleasantly vague,” Cas eventually mutters, and then stalks forward to where Sam and Charlie are before Dean can make any response.

Once he’s confident Dean has, indeed, turned back to take care of whatever pressing and mysterious ‘thing’ he wishes to attend to, he joins them, catching Sam’s eye.

“You,” he says firmly. “You are reasonable and communicative, most times. Why can’t Dean and I kiss in public?”

Sam lowers the half-eaten apple on a stick he’s holding.

“Oh. Well, um, it’s a little rude to other people, who might not want to see you guys do that, and . . . people might say stuff about you?”

“What stuff?” Cas presses, narrowing his eyes, and Sam winces.

“Just — you’ve been getting those flowers from Alfie, and even if you weren’t, if people know who Dean are, they’re either going to think he’s taking advantage of you again or that you’re letting him — _use_ you for things. Which is okay in theory, and everyone has affairs before they mate, for the most part, at least this far South, but — you’re kinda supposed to be quiet about it? Or you get a bad reputation.”

“It’s super dumb,” Charlie interjects cheerfully, and Cas glances at her, nodding.

“Yes, it sounds like it.” He frowns. “I wonder if Samandriel knows what they mean.”

They exchange looks.

“What do you mean?”

“The flowers. Dean told me they were part of a Winchester courtship ritual.”

“He — you mean you didn’t _know_ that?”

“No, why would I?”

“Because _everyone_ knows that!”

“Well, I didn’t, and given that Samandriel was told _not_ to court me — I don’t think he knows, either.”

“No way,” Charlie protests. “ _You_ grew up in New Eden, so that’s fair — although _seriously,_ how has no one told you? — but Alfie _definitely_ knows.”

It’s a disturbing thought.

“Why would he try to trick me, though?” Cas protests. “When I found out, I would certainly put a stop to it.”

Sam coughs.

“Cas, he probably thinks you know, too. He probably thinks you’ve been _encouraging_ him.”

“But — I _haven’t.”_

“Yeah, but — I mean, have you guys ever talked about it?”

“Well, no, but Anna _told_ him—"

“Oh, please, if your sister told _me_ to do something, I’d totally go right out and do the opposite,” Charlie declares, and Cas can’t exactly argue with that, but—

“Samandriel respects her very much, though. And in this instance, she was representing the wishes _I_ expressed to her.”

They exchange looks.

“Maybe she didn’t tell him?”

Cas stares.

“Are you suggesting she’s deliberately allowed him to mislead me?”

“I mean . . . especially after Sam and I showed up, she’s probably worried. Maybe she decided it would be better for you to end up with Alfie than risk you throwing your garter after Lawrence.”

Cas’s fists curl at his sides.

“Well, then she’s being foolish _._ No matter how many bouquets they trick me into accepting, they can’t trick me into mating him.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, looking troubled. “Which — they have to know that.”

“I don’t know, neither one of them seems all that bright to me,” Charlie says cheerfully.

“Charlie.”

“What? Only a dumbass would think _Dean_ was a problem. Or that Cas was into the kid, for that matter.”

Sam snorts, but he gives her a stern look.

“They don’t _know_ Dean. And he can be a nightmare, when he gets a weird idea about something.”

“I have to agree with Sam,” Cas interjects, trying not to think of pies scattered across floors. He’s completely forgiven Dean for that, of course, so there’s no need to dwell. “But Anna is only ever stupid out of stubbornness. It’s difficult to believe she would try to force me to marry someone.”

Charlie huffs.

“Fine, maybe she’s not _stupid_ , but — the chick is under _way_ too much stress. I don’t know if it’s politics or worrying that Dean’s gonna spirit you away in the night to keep you in a sex dungeon for the rest of your life or _what,_ but she’s way different than your stories and whatever her damage is, she needs to stop taking it out on _you._ ”

Cas has to agree with that, at least. Dean appears to be their biggest point of contention, but Anna’s hardly herself these days.

Although -

“What is a ‘sex dungeon’ and why would Dean put me in one?”

Both of them freeze.

“Where _is_ Dean, anyway?” Charlie suddenly asks, looking around.

“He had to use the bathroom,” Cas replies, then lifts his brows expectantly.

Neither of them answer.

And then Sam hastily grabs Charlie’s hand, pushes the apple stick into it, and smiles brightly at her.

“I have to go to the bathroom, too,” he declares and, ignoring her squawk of indignation, quickly strides into the nearest shop.

They stare after him for a moment, but then Cas returns his attention to Charlie.

“Why doesn’t Sam want to explain a ‘sex dungeon’ to me?”

She makes a face.

“Ask Dean.”

“Will Dean explain it?”

“If he doesn’t, withhold kisses,” she says firmly, clapping him on the shoulder with her free hand.

“But — that hurts me. And I don’t think it will work.”

“A) It totally will, and B) don’t worry, he won’t last long.” She clears her throat. “Wanna share the rest of Sam’s apple with me?”

“That seems unkind.”

For a moment, she just smiles at him.

“We really do miss you,” she declares softly, and although Cas immediately smiles back, he can’t help but feel a small pang of guilt, knowing how his thoughts have been divided as they’ve walked through town.

“I miss you, too. Very much.” He hesitates, and she lifts a brow.

“How is there seriously a ‘but,’ after this?” she demands, though there’s no bite to it.

“Just . . . you and Sam made it sound like you would visit several times.”

“Yeah? We’re not letting you go _that_ easy,” she jokes, and he relaxes a little.

“Good. I don’t want you to. And I — I’m very happy to see you, this time, but — if you’re sure you’re coming back . . .”

“Definitely,” she promises, giving him a curious look. “What’s up, Cas?”

He looks down.

“I have work tomorrow.”

“Oh. Damn.”

“Is it alright if — may I have the last night with Dean?” Cas swallows. “Just Dean?”

Charlie’s face softens.

“Of course, Cas.”

“I’m sorry, I want to spend it with all of you, but—"

“Cas,” she interrupts, mock-stern. “We’re coming back for you, whether you want us to or not. Don’t worry.”

He nods, relieved, though he still feels bad.

“Yes, I was hoping so, but — it’s just — Dean won’t.”

Charlie’s humor falters.

“Oh. Well. That’s hard to say.”

“Not really.” Cas shrugs. “He came to say goodbye, didn’t he?”

“I mean, technically he came to make sure your head was okay.”

Cas gives her a puzzled look.

“He could have written, for that.”

“Right, well, Dean’s complicated. Or — incredibly simple-minded. I’m not actually sure which.” She shakes herself. “Anyway — he wanted to see you, which is the important thing, right?”

“Right,” Cas agrees readily. “It is.”

“And . . . he’ll probably wanna see you again.”

Cas looks down, shaking his head.

“He hasn’t said anything to that effect.”

“So? Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure he will.”

It’s a nice thought, certainly, but Cas knows better, and he doubts it.

“Still,” he says. “Just in case, I — I want tomorrow night.”

For some reason, she cracks a smile.

“Ooh, tomorrow _night_ night, or just tomorrow night?”

He gives her a confused look.

“What?”

“Nothing. Sorry, joke about . . . anyways, never mind.”

“Ah.” Cas clears his throat. “I’m going to let him bed me.”

Charlie sucks in a breath, fumbling the apple.

“If he wants to, that is,” Cas adds. It’s entirely possible he won’t, after all.

“You — oh. Okay. So . . . tomorrow _night_ night! Awesome.” She blinks. “Oh, boy.”

“Have you . . . have you ever been bedded by an alpha?’

“Ooh. Uh. No, actually!” She coughs. “Alphas of my persuasion aren’t really thick on the ground.”

He tilts his head.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

She shrugs, giving him an uncertain look.

“I like women.”

Cas nods slowly.

“Yes, I’m fond of many women — actually, I do tend to like them better than men — but—"

“No, no, I mean — I like to bed women.”

Cas blinks.

“You . . . bed women?”

She chuckles, albeit a little awkwardly.

“Yup!”

“How?” He didn’t know that was possible. The only reason Dean can bed _him_ is because he’s an omega, and he’s uniquely designed for it.

How on earth does Charlie manage to . . .

She coughs.

“That — that’s not really important. Or it is, but — now’s not a good time. Next time! For right now, though — you said ‘let.’” She frowns at him. “That makes it sound like you don’t get anything out of it.”

Cas quickly shakes his head.

“No, I think — I get the most out of it.” Dean said he wasn’t inexperienced, which means that this is a service provided him elsewhere, which means it’s hardly an opportunity for him.

Whereas _Cas_ gets kisses — a lot of them, due to Dean’s uncommonly generous nature — and he’ll get _closeness,_ and even if Dean has plenty of opportunities elsewhere — that will be how he remembers Cas.

As someone who gave him pleasure.

And perhaps, if fate should determine it best . . .

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Charlie jokes, though she looks relieved, squeezing his arm. “Are you sure, though?”

Cas nods.

“Yes. I — honestly, I wished I had before they took me.” Of course, perhaps there’s a _reason_ he didn’t. “Except — I don’t know if Dean will _want_ to.”

She snorts.

“ _T_ _rust_ me, he’ll want to, but . . . look, don’t be hurt if he says no, anyway, okay? Things are — well, they’re really weird, with you guys. Honestly, even _I’m_ not sure if — well. It’s your choice, and if you feel like you’ve thought about it, then — you know. Go for it. But . . . he might say no.”

Cas nods.

“I’m prepared for that.”

“Right, but — you know if it happens, it’s not because of you. Right?”

Cas squints.

“Why else would it be?”

“Tons of reasons! But in this case — he’d just — he wouldn’t want to take advantage.”

“How would it be taking advantage?”

She bites her lip.

“Like I said. Your situation is just — it’s weird. He’s kind of your first experience with romance? Except you weren’t allowed to leave your room, and you _had_ to stay at the castle, and now you’re kind of adjusting to a really different life than you’ve ever had, so . . . a lot of people would say it’s — well. Not the best time.”

“But there won’t be other times,” Cas says, at a loss. “This is it.”

“Right, and — you know, that’s a lot of pressure. These things are usually _way_ more awesome without pressure.”

“Oh.”

“So, he might say no, but — if there weren’t pressure, or weird circumstances, he just — he cares about you _so_ much, Cas. And he’d definitely wanna bed you.”

“But . . . how do you know?”

Charlie hesitates.

And then she steps in close, quickly glancing around.

“Right, so, he’d definitely kill me for telling you this, so try to keep it to yourself, okay?”

Cas blinks.

“Okay?”

She glances about, and then leans in even further, catching his eye.

“That portrait of you, from the festival? He had it framed. And he _sleeps_ with it.”

Cas draws back, stunned.

“But he said he didn’t know what happened to it.”

“What?”

“He said he thought you had it.”

“Well, he’s totally a liar, because I _never_ had it.”

Cas just stares.

“And he — sleeps with it?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“Because he misses you, dummy. And he wishes it was you there with him.”

“That can’t be true,” he protests. “He intends to say goodbye to me.”

She shrugs.

“’Cause he thinks he has to. Not because he wants to.”

_But he_ doesn’t _have to,_ Cas almost says, but then he remembers the proclamation, and the fact that all three of them have to make up lies about river tours to get permission to come see him.

Dean probably _couldn’t_ come back, even if he wanted to.

Cas is lucky to have gotten this much.

And if Dean _doesn’t_ really want to say goodbye to Cas, if Dean really does miss him, so much that he not only kept Cas’s portrait, but looks at it often-

Cas would like to give him whatever he is able, before they must part for good.

“I see,” is all he says, overwhelmed. He finds himself glancing over his shoulder, suddenly anxious for Dean to reappear. “Well. Then. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”

She nods slowly.

“And . . . if this is really just because you don’t think you’ll see him again — maybe _you_ should reconsider?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, _that’s_ pressure, too. And — look, life has a really funny way of working out. Don’t be so sure this is your last chance, okay?”

He studies her.

“You believe I _will_ have another.”

She shrugs.

“I do. Like, I can’t make any promises, because I’m not Dean, but I do _know_ Dean, and — yeah, Cas. I think you’ll see him again. Hell, I’d _bet_ on it.”

Last time Cas had been in doubt, had supposed Dean would _not_ want to kiss him — he’d been proven wrong. Even though Cas had had to act first, had waited until he could no longer help himself — Dean _did_ want to kiss him, and now he’s kissed Cas again, told him ‘not just once,’ like he intends to do it some more, and perhaps—

Perhaps Cas will be proven wrong in this, as well.

She abruptly straightens, stepping back slightly.

“Incoming,” she says under her breath.

Cas blinks.

“What do you—"

“What’d you guys do with Sam?” Dean asks, and Cas starts, swiveling.

Dean looks inordinately pleased with himself for some reason, and when he meets Cas’s eye, his grin widens.

“He had to go to the bathroom,” Cas supplies, staring at him. He’s trying not to think of Dean, softened by sleep, perhaps even wearing the nightgown he’d ordered from Pamela, waking up to Cas’s portrait, but he’s struggling to put it out of his mind. “Do you really—"

He stops, remembering that Charlie asked him not to mention it.

“Do I really what?”

Cas hesitates.

“Why would you put me in a ‘sex dungeon’?” he asks instead.

Charlie’s still doubled over laughing by the time Sam returns, Dean red-faced and tight-lipped as he looks everywhere but at Cas.

For some reason, he refuses to speak to any of them for the next half-hour.

True to his word, Dean doesn’t hold Cas’s hand or kiss him again, but Cas finds he very much enjoys the day, anyway. He’d enjoyed coming through town with Sam and Charlie the first time, and with Dean in tow, today is even better.

Honestly, having all of them together at once makes Cas a little wistful, thinking he could have stayed at the castle longer, could have started going to to game nights, wandered through town with them occasionally, perhaps even gone to another festival of some kind — but mostly, he loses himself to their banter, to the pleasure of being able to answer questions about shops and things and showing them his favorite buildings to look at, and to Dean’s shoulder, brushing against his every few steps, a small smile shared between them.

(Starting the day with all those kisses may have something to do with his pleasure, too, the irresistible promise of more never far from his thoughts.)

They set off for Mills Park before dinner time, Sam giving Dean a speaking look before climbing up on the perch and Charlie mischievously declaring her need for more fresh air, and Cas isn’t quite sure what to expect from the drive home.

Somehow, he suspects kissing in the carriage isn’t customary, though he’ll be happy to be proven wrong.

Still, despite feeling an irrational sense of nervousness and curiosity both, for the first minute, nothing happens at all.

Cas takes a deep breath, and across the aisle, Dean looks up.

They stare at each other, the silence stretching on. Color slowly seeps into Dean’s cheeks until abruptly, he ducks his chin and looks away.

Cas isn’t quite sure what to make of it.

“I’m just — I’ll just—" Dean starts, and then suddenly he’s pushing out of his seat, swiftly turning and reseating himself on Cas’s side, Cas just barely moving in time to make a space.

“If that’s okay,” Dean adds, glancing over at him, almost uncertain.

“Of course,” Cas says quickly.

He wonders if they’re allowed to hold hands in the carriage.

“Awesome,” Dean mumbles, reaching up to scratch his neck.

A few more seconds tick by, Dean a palpable warmth beside him.

Cas clears his throat.

“Um. Now that Sam and Charlie aren’t here . . .”

Dean sucks in a breath, head turning quickly.

“Oh. Uh, yeah?”

“Will you tell me what a ‘sex dungeon’ is?”

Dean blinks.

“Maybe. Will you tell me why you want to know?”

“Charlie says Anna’s worried you’ll take me away and keep me in a sex dungeon for the rest of my life.” Cas frowns. “I don’t know why. I never told her about the night in the regular dungeon, and she knows how comfortable my room was.”

Dean looks at him for another moment, and then sighs.

“A sex dungeon’s not really a dungeon, Cas. At least, not for most people.”

“Alright. Why is it called that, then?”

“It’s — it’s part of the theme, ‘cause the whole point is a sort of kinky game where one person does stuff to the other person and calls it torture but they’re happy about it — and anyway, the point is, I don’t have a sex dungeon and I’m not kidnapping you, so don’t worry about it.”

Cas squints.

“What kind of torture would someone be _happy_ about?”

“Just — you know, sexy torture.”

“Sexy torture,” Cas repeats, irritated, and Dean huffs.

“What are you looking for here, man? Trust me, you’re not in any danger.”

“But you said I might be happy about it.”

Dean’s mouth drops open.

“I — well, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be.”

“What’s a form of ‘sexy torture,’ Dean?”

Dean lifts his brows, shrugging.

“I don’t know! I don’t do sexy torture stuff, Cas!”

“Then why did Charlie tell me to ask you? She thought you would know.”

“Well, I _don’t_!”

Cas studies him for a moment.

And then he sits back against the cushion, sullen.

“I don’t believe you.”

Dean huffs again.

“Fine! It’d be like if I — jesus, I don’t know, chained you to the bed and licked you all over until you were begging for mercy. Shit like that.”

Cas makes a face, trying to picture it.

“I’d be — _extremely_ upset if you chained me to anything, Dean. To be honest, I think the lack of chaining and violence you subjected me to may have been one of the key factors in our eventual ability to form a friendship,” he adds seriously.

Dean is utterly silent for a moment.

And then he makes a choked noise and starts laughing.

“I’m not sure about the licking, though,” Cas continues, puzzled but undeterred by his reaction. “I don’t _think_ I would beg for mercy, if you did such a thing. It might be mildly unpleasant, but — hardly intolerable.”

Dean stops laughing.

“Uh.”

“I like how your tongue feels when we kiss, though,” Cas muses. “I didn’t think I would, based on novels, but — I do. Very much. Perhaps I _would_ enjoy feeling it other places.”

Dean says nothing to that, and when Cas glances back over, his eyes are shut.

“Dean?”

Dean swallows.

“Yeah. Sorry. Uh. Maybe so,” he mumbles, then opens his eyes. “But — enough about sexy torture, okay?”

“Alright.” Cas is satisfied that neither of them have any interest in it, and that Anna’s fears are (as always) unfounded. “What would you like to talk about?”

Dean hesitates.

“Honestly? A lot of stuff. There’s a lot of stuff we _should_ talk about, actually, but—"

He stops, and Cas lifts a brow.

“But?” he echoes.

Dean looks back at him, intent.

“But, uh. I’m probably not gonna get you alone for the rest of the evening.”

Cas blinks.

“No. Probably not,” he agrees slowly, and Dean licks his lips.

“Just — seems like a, uh. A shame.”

“A shame.”

“You know. That I won’t. And that the, uh, the drive into town earlier was so short.”

Cas swallows.

“Yes. That was a shame. I found Sam very rude.”

Dean’s lips quirk, some indefinable light dancing in his eyes.

It leaves Cas feeling breathless.

“That’s Sam, for you. Always rude. Not like me,” he adds, and Cas nods.

“Not like you,” he agrees. “You merely . . . bluster, and throw pies.”

Dean winces.

“Really, man?”

“It’s fine. I forgive you. I hardly even think of it anymore,” Cas adds, eyes drifting to Dean’s mouth. “You are polite in all the ways that count, Dean.”

“Uh-huh. What, uh, what ways are those, again?” he asks, a strangely rough quality to his voice. He seems closer now, but Cas can’t be sure which one of them moved, or if either of them even did.

Cas hesitates.

Then he lifts his gaze, meeting Dean’s.

The light is still there, somehow, though Dean’s eyes have darkened, sunlight growing scant where it filters through the trees and hits the windows.

“When I ask you for something,” he says evenly. “You give it to me.”

Dean goes utterly still, staring at him for a moment.

“I don’t think that’s what ‘polite’ means, Cas,” he finally says.

And then he kisses him, and Cas doesn’t care about being rude at all.

There’s a coach and carriage both in the drive ahead of them, not that Cas is aware of it until Sam, once again, rudely interrupts and insists they disembark.

Disheveled and feeling considerably less charitable than he should be, Cas leads them to the front door, wondering if he can send Sam and Charlie up to wait while he and Dean make tea.

(Tea takes several minutes to steep, after all.)

The door swings open immediately, Lucy looking pleased.

“Oh, good. I worried these hooligans would keep you out debauching until after dark.”

“We actually weren’t debauching,” Charlie interrupts, faintly disbelieving. “Like, even if I _weren’t_ opposed, it’s kind of hard to do depraved things to someone in broad daylight on a crowded city street?”

“Not but what I’m sure you didn’t try,” Lucy says neatly, and then pointedly looks back to Castiel, gesturing him inside.

There are already two women present in the foyer, one in smart ivory riding gear, hat in hand and blonde hair tucked in an efficient knot, and the other in an unremarkable grey workdress, perched on the bench with her own hat clutched in her lap, eyes downcast.

Lucy beams.

“It’s a good thing you _didn’t_ stay out; now you get to meet Miss Talbot,” she says, and it’s clear this is meant to be a treat of some sort.

Cas glances between them uncertainly as the others crowd in after him, awkwardly huddling together so Lucy can close the door.

The woman in riding gear stiffens, eyes widening a fraction.

Cas fights a grimace; a lot of people gawk when they first meet him and realize who and what he is, and if anything, he dislikes it even more as time goes by.

“Miss Talbot, I presume?”

She nods, gaze shifting slightly, and it occurs to him she may not have been looking at him, after all.

“You’re correct,” she says slowly, and Lucy bustles around them, smiling brightly at her.

“This is Castiel. Anna’s poor little brother,” she adds meaningfully.

At that, Miss Talbot lifts a brow, glance flicking down him.

“I’d never have guessed. He’s a little more . . . _formidable_ , than I had imagined.” Her lips quirk up at one corner. “It’s a pleasure, Castiel. And congratulations on your liberation.”

Cas tries not to make a face.

“Thank you. Though you should probably congratulate Anna,” he adds sourly. “It was her triumph.”

_In every sense_ , he doesn’t say.

Miss Talbot’s brow rises a fraction.

“Ah,” she utters, and then looks behind him, lifting her chin. “And . . . who might your companions be?”

Cas glances back, disturbed to realize she’s staring at _Dean,_ who gives her a sharp look.

“Prince Dean of Winchester,” he informs her. “My brother, Prince Sam, and our friend, the Honorable Miss Charlie Bradbury.”

“A pleasure,” Miss Talbot murmurs, inclining her head, and Dean nods.

“Miss . . . Talbot, did you say?”

“Lucy did, yes,” she offers, and he says nothing for a moment, still staring.

Cas dislikes it.

“Miss Talbot,” he finally says. “Like the Talbot Woods in Edgewater?”

She arches a brow, though Cas thinks her mouth tightens.

“More popularly known as the Blue Forest, but yes, your highness. Like that.”

“Miss Talbot is a _hero_ ,” Lucy interjects proudly, albeit with a pointed look at Dean. “I can’t tell you how many of the girls here she’s rescued. If you can believe it, she’s actually the one what brought Anna to us in the first place!”

Cas looks back at Miss Talbot with reluctant interest; every time he’s tried to ask about how _Anna_ came to be there, she’s changed the subject.

“Why wouldn’t we believe it?” Charlie queries, dubious, and Lucy sighs.

“Because they don’t get along _at all._ Which is a shame, because they both do such wonderful work on beha—"

“Miss Talbot,” Anna’s voice interjects from the top of the stairs, and everyone stops, looking up, though the girl on the bench barely twitches. “I don’t recall hearing you’d sent word.”

She begins her descent, eyes stormy, red hair ruthlessly pulled away from her face and pinned, no sign of the ever-present flyaway strands that tend to frame her face.

Cas has felt unduly harassed, these many months, but he still doesn’t think he’s ever seen his sister look quite so _severe._

Miss Talbot lifts a shoulder, inclining her head.

“Apologies, darling. It must have slipped my mind.”

Anna freezes mid-step, eyes narrowing.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Miss Talbot adds. “Anna.”

“Miss Novak,” Anna snaps, and Miss Talbot sighs.

“Of course, Miss Novak. I truly beg your pardon. It’s just — it’s so difficult to keep track of what exactly you’d like to hear at any given moment, I confess to being somewhat at a loss sometimes.”

Lucy looks dismayed, though Cas is fairly certain he hears Charlie giggle.

Anna grits her teeth and continues down the stairs.

“And your purpose in being here?”

“What, I can’t stop in for tea and a hot meal every now and again?”

“No, you can’t,” Anna says bluntly. “And since you failed to send word — _again —_ and dinner is in less than an hour, we’re sadly unprepared to host you.”

Miss Talbot tsks.

“A fine estate like Mills Park, managed with the aid of such talented, hardworking young ladies as it is, can’t accommodate two more for a night?”

“We can accommodate _one_ , though it certainly won’t be you,” Anna retorts, looking beyond her to the girl on the bench. “Pardon our disarray, ma’am. But please accept our very warm welcome.”

Miss Talbot rolls her eyes, turning.

“Miss Maxwell?”

The girl on the bench jerks upright, brown eyes wide and startled. She’s younger than Cas initially assumed, though there’s a premature tiredness in her unlined face, and he experience a pang of unease at what might have brought her to their door.

“I’m so sorry, yes?”

“Miss Novak just wished to welcome you,” Miss Talbot says gently.

Miss Maxwell’s face flushes, and she quickly bobs her head.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Novak. Thank you very much. I’ll try not to be any trouble.”

“Be all the trouble you want,” Anna says cheerfully. “You still won’t be the worst I have to deal with.”

This time, _Cas_ rolls his eyes. He’s fairly certain she’s talking about him.

“Oh,” Miss Maxwell says uncertainly, looking a little lost, and Anna softens.

“What I mean is — we’re all a handful, here, sometimes. It just makes things interesting, for the most part.” She smiles. “Had we known you were coming, we would have prepared a better welcome, but — dinner will be ready soon, and we’ll have a room for you in no time. We can save the tour for tomorrow, I’m sure you must be tired.”

The girl hesitates.

“Whatever you think is best.”

Anna’s smile falters, though only briefly.

“Well, that settles it. A meal and some rest.” She clears her throat. “Lucy, would you be so kind as to let her wash up in your room while I get her some tea and arrange something more permanent for her?”

Lucy beams.

“Of course, it’ll be my pleasure.” She moves to the bench, nodding at Miss Maxwell. “It’s just up the stairs. Were you able to bring your things, sweetie, or would you like to borrow a fresh dress? I’d suppose we’re of a size.”

Miss Maxwell hesitates.

“I wasn’t, but Miss Talbot purchased a few for me. They’re in the coach.”

Lucy shoots Miss Talbot an approving look.

“Very good. Your highness!” she abruptly snaps, turning. “Make yourself useful and fetch this poor young lady’s personal belongings from the coach.”

Dean’s mouth falls open.

“You — did you just—"

“Best hurry,” she adds, then holds out a hand to Miss Maxwell. “Come on, then. I want you to have time to enjoy that cup of tea, hm?”

Miss Maxwell slowly rises from the bench, glancing toward the group uneasily, but Lucy just tugs her through toward the stairs.

“Bags, your highness,” she mutters, and heads up them, Miss Maxwell trailing behind.

“Does she seriously think she can just—" Dean starts, and Cas clears his throat.

“Dean.”

Dean quiets, looking at him, and then huffs.

“ _Fine._ ” He points a finger at Cas, raising his brows. _“_ But not because Miss Snippy-Swords told me to.”

Cas just squints back, and the pout on Dean’s face twitches slightly before he coughs into his hand.

“Yeah, okay. Be right back.”

Still. He swears Dean’s hand brushes over his when he passes, and he suppresses a smile.

When he looks back up, Anna is staring.

“Well, that _is_ an interesting development,” Miss Talbot says dryly. “Speaking of interesting developments, though — I believe you mentioned something about making me _tea_?”

Anna’s expression turns thunderous, and Miss Talbot smiles, catlike in her smugness.

“Do take your time, of course,” she adds. “I have nowhere to be until dinner.”

“You—" Anna starts, but then Lucy’s reappearing on the landing, catching Cas’s eye, oblivious to the conflict.

“By the by, Castiel, I didn’t get a chance to mention — Alfie’s waiting on the terrace when you have a moment! See that you don’t forget all about him,” she adds pointedly, and then darts back up the stairs.

Anna sighs.

“Cas. Why don’t you come with to make tea, and you can take him some?”

“But I have guests.”

“Who I’m sure would like some before-dinner refreshment.”

He makes a face.

“Fine,” he mutters, and catches Anna looking skyward before he turns to Sam and Charlie. “If you wait in my room, I’ll bring you tea.”

“Sounds great, Cas,” Sam says, somehow still smiling, despite the tense spectacle they’ve all managed to make of themselves, and Charlie nods.

“And — maybe talk to the kid about those flowers, while you’re out there?”

Cas sobers, returning her nod grimly.

Samandriel isn’t the only one he needs to discuss flowers with.

“Yes. I will. I’ll see you both shortly.”

With that, he joins Anna and starts toward the kitchen.

“What do you know of Winchester courtship traditions?” he asks carefully, once the water is boiling.

Anna freezes.

“Why do you ask?”

He narrows his eyes.

“Because I ask.”

She purses her lips.

“Are you trying to court him or has he had the nerve to suggest he’s going to court _you_?”

Cas rolls his eyes.

“Neither, obviously. I’m not stupid Anna,” he adds reluctantly. “Dean and I aren’t going to court.”

“As long as you know.” She sighs. “Did you have fun today, at least?”

Cas smiles slightly.

“I did. Very much.”

“I see. And did he behave himself?”

Cas considers this.

“He was extremely polite to me, on two occasions,” Cas settles on, and Anna gives him a quizzical look.

“Alright. That’s — good?”

“Oh, it was,” he assures her, and she makes a face.

“Actually, I don’t want to know. As long as you’re enjoying yourself,” she mutters. “Why do you ask about courtship, though?”

He studies her for a moment.

“Because I was told, today, that a bouquet of white chrysanthemums is given to initiate courtship. And a bouquet of pink ones is offered to confirm the courtship is still acceptable.”

Anna hums.

“Well, everyone likes flowers, I suppose. Even back home, that one young man brought me some.”

“What kind were they?” Cas asks carefully, and she shrugs.

“I don’t know. Daisies, perhaps? There were yellow and white and pink ones. And some kind of green, leafy thing. Anyway, it didn’t matter, there. It’s not like you’d give an unmated girl flowers for any other reason.”

“Some kind of green, leafy thing,” he repeats, and she rolls her eyes.

“Not all of us have spent half-a-year growing the damned things, Cas.”

He nods, satisfied — and rather relieved, if he’s being honest.

“Ah. Well, in case you’re curious, the flowers Samandriel has brought me have, in fact, been chrysanthemums.”

She stills, giving him a blank stare.

“The white ones that were on your table for two weeks,” she says abruptly, and Cas nods.

“And the pink ones that are up there, now.”

She nods.

And then she strides past him and straight out of the kitchen.

He can hear yelling from the hallway, once he’s set the tea to steep and gone to follow her outside, but the words aren’t clear until he opens the terrace door.

“-and you said you _understood_!”

“That was two months ago!”

“I don’t care if it was two _years_ ago, I told you _not_ to!”

“Well, I — I don’t care what you say!” Samandriel insists, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “You don’t own him, and Castiel can make his _own_ decisions!”

Anna stares at him for a moment.

And then:

“ _Has no one been listening to me?_ ” she explodes. “ _Yes,_ he can make his own decisions! I want him to! That’s why I brought him here! But he can’t make them if he doesn’t know what they _mean,_ and he _obviously_ didn’t know what this one meant!”

“You don’t _know_ that—"

“Oh, I _do_! And so do you, you conniving _brat._ Anyone with half a brain can tell he still thinks he’s in love with the prince!”

“So? That doesn’t mean he can’t choose me! I can _help_ him—"

“By being his _friend._ Like you _said_ you would be.”

“If he wants me to be more, then I’ll be it, no matter what that means!”

“That’s just _it!_ He _doesn’t_! Not on any level! And whether you admit it or not, some part of you could tell.” She shakes her head, shoulders tense. “I appreciate your support, Samandriel, but he’s not the damsel in your fairytale, and — you were wrong to push. He’s not ready, not for you or anybody else.”

Cas is prepared to interject, feeling a little guilty at the distress in the boy’s face and worried Anna’s working herself into dangerous territory, when she continues.

“For heaven’s sake, Samandriel — he hasn’t even spent a penny of his wages yet. Almost his entire life, he didn’t get to have hardly anything for himself, and now that he can? He _hasn’t._ Trust me, if he can’t even make a simple decision about what he wants to buy, he certainly can’t decide who he wants to _mate_.”

He blinks, startled. Anna asks him, periodically, if he’s done anything with his earnings, but the answer is, of course, always no.

_There’s too many choices,_ he’d said last time, and admitted, _honestly_ , _it_ _still_ _feels strange, having it. I try to just pretend it’s not there._

He never gives those conversations a second thought, having supposed Anna was just curious.

He hadn’t realized it was a different question.

“Anna,” he interrupts, and across the terrace, the pair freeze, turning slightly to face him. “Will you give me a moment with Samandriel?”

She hesitates.

“Of course. He owes you an apology. But—"

“Anna,” he repeats gently, and she scowls.

“Don’t be understanding. He knew better. They _always_ know better.”

Across from her, standing stiffly by the table, Samandriel looks a little ashamed.

And as much as Cas _is_ angry, is even a little hurt that, unbeknownst to him, there’s been some sort of plot, especially one that delayed Dean kissing him-

“I’ll handle it,” he says firmly. “Would you mind finishing the tea?”

She fixes him with an inscrutable look.

And then she gives a short nod.

“I’m writing to your sister,” she mutters, and Samandriel’s face falls.

“But—"

Anna turns on her heel, stalking to the doors and pausing when she reaches Cas.

“You have a right to be angry,” she says seriously. “And you have a right to tell him. It’s not going to hurt him. With any luck, it will just teach him a lesson he needs to learn.”

Without waiting for a response, she slips inside.

Cas shuts the door behind her and takes a deep breath.

“Sit,” he says, heading toward the table, and Samandriel quickly drops back into his chair.

“I really — I assumed you must know—" he starts, and Cas frowns at him, taking the seat across from him.

“Samandriel,” he interrupts, and the boy shrinks in on himself a little, dread in his gaze. “Why do you want to marry me?”

Blue eyes blink back at him, startled.

“What? I — because! You’re — well, you’re _wonderful,_ Castiel. You’re kind, and patient, and good, and you inspire me, every single day.”

Cas nods. He supposes they’re not bad reasons, although he can’t imagine wanting to marry someone on that basis alone, and he certainly wouldn’t have ever described himself thus.

Of course, Samandriel has often seemed to hold a warped view of him which, honestly, makes Cas wonder now.

He’s just not sure how to ask the question in such a way that will generate an honest answer.

“Alright,” he eventually says. “And . . . what do you think being married to me will be like? What, um. What would be different, than now?”

He straightens.

“Well, when we’re married, you won’t have to work, and we can travel and see all the famous gardens, and you can get to know Charlotte, and help Anna and the others change Winchester, and — and do whatever makes you happy, Castiel. I — I want to give you everything.”

Cas nods again, a little daunted by this speech.

“What about you? What do you want from it?”

“Nothing!” Samandriel looks offended. “You _saved_ me, Castiel. You saved a lot of people, in some ways. I want to be the one to save you.”

Cas tilts his head, puzzled.

“But — I don’t need to be saved. I don’t _want_ to be saved, honestly. I’ve had enough of that. And actually — I don’t even want to not have to work, or to travel to see the famous gardens, or be part of the cause.”

“I — alright — but, whatever you _do_ need—"

All of these questions, from all of these people, about Cas’s needs and wants, as if there were any great quantity of the former or possibility of the latter.

He’s _tired_ of it.

“Do you love me?” he asks frankly, and Samandriel looks taken aback.

“Of course!” he insists, rather unhelpfully, and Cas hesitates.

“Tell me what it feels like, when you see me,” he finally asks.

His experience with love may be limited, but it is profound, and while it’s taught him that one party _can_ be oblivious while the other is feeling, _desperately_ —

His instincts tell him that is not the case, here.

And if he can get Samandriel to describe it—

Well, perhaps he can prove it.

“I . . . it — I’m always excited to see you. I always look forward to sitting with you, to seeing how you are each day, to talking with you about everything that’s going on in town. Seeing you is _wonderful_ , Castiel. It — it gives me so much energy to go out and try to do good in the world. I love being here in Sioux Falls with you. It’s been the most amazing experience I’ve ever had.”

Cas studies him for a moment, and despite the earnestness in his gaze, somehow communicated through the entire rest of his body-

“I don’t think you love me,” he says gently, and Samandriel’s face falls.

“I — perhaps I rushed our courtship, but I can do more—"

“No,” Cas interrupts. “That wasn’t criticism. I don’t _want_ you to love me, because — I’ll be honest, Samandriel, I don’t love you. Not in that way. And perhaps that isn’t required for all marriages, but — I’m not _going_ to marry or mate anyone, without it. Not if I don’t have to.”

Which means Cas won’t marry or mate anyone, at all, but that’s hardly the point of the conversation.

Samandriel goes quiet.

“But . . .”

“I don’t think you should marry or mate anyone without it, either,” Cas adds, and Samandriel bites his lip.

“That doesn’t matter to me. Castiel, you – your life has been so difficult, and you’ve done so much for others, anyway, and you – you’re so _unhappy._ I just – I just want to take care of you.”

Cas blinks, frowning.

“You asked to marry me, at the hearings,” he says abruptly, and Samandriel nods. “After meeting me once.”

“Once was enough—"

“It wasn’t,” Cas counters. “It wasn’t about me. Not really.”

“How can you say that?” he demands, hurt, and Cas shakes his head.

“How can you suggest it is? Whatever you thought of me – it wasn’t enough to marry me.”

“But-”

“I think — you saw what happened to me, and you thought it was wrong, and you wanted to fix it. And marrying me was the solution you came up with.”

Samandriel stares back, confused and troubled.

“Well, yes, Castiel.”

“But – that _isn’t_ about me. That’s about you, attempting to right a wrong. Having – having compassion for someone else’s suffering. And that — that’s a tremendous quality to possess, Samandriel. But it’s not the same as being in love with me.”

The boy hesitates, opening his mouth, and Cas hastily presses on.

“And the things going wrong for me — you can’t be the one to fix them, nor should I let you try. There is a lot of good you can do in the world – that you _are_ doing – and I think it will make you happy to do it. I don’t deserve to have you focus all of your energies on me, instead.”

“Perhaps I — I’ve been hasty, but Castiel, you deserve anything and everything you could possibly—"

“But I don’t _want_ anything and everything. I know what I want, and I don’t think I can have it, either way, but — you can’t provide it. I’m very glad for your friendship, Samandriel, but I can’t offer you more, and even if I tried – you would end up unhappy. You’re a wonderful young m- a wonderful man,” Cas amends. “And you deserve what _you_ really want, as well. And I – I don’t think I’m it. Not really.”

Samandriel just looks at him, lost.

“But . . . but I . . .”

He trails off, and Castiel considers him for a moment.

“You often you say you think I’m beautiful,” he starts, just on a hunch, and Samandriel quickly nods.

“Yes, absolutely—"

“If I asked if you wanted to watch me bathe, what would you say?”

He flinches back, eyes wide.

“No! No, of course not! That — that’s — I would never! We’re not even properly engaged! That — I could never be so dishonorable!”

Cas nods, satisfied.

“You’re very honorable, Samandriel. But – I’ll be honest. I don’t think it’s dishonorable, and I know I’m not alone in that, and I don’t care, either way.” Cas pauses. “I asked Dean that, by the way. And he did. It was very gratifying.”

Samandriel gapes.

“Then that makes him a _scoundrel_!”

“Then I like him as a scoundrel,” Cas says easily. “Honestly, I would have watched _him_ bathe, if he’d given me the opportunity. And — when I was at the castle, I often thought of stealing kisses from him, without even asking first.” He just barely stops himself before admitting that he’s going to let Dean bed him, too, if he wants, and shrugs. “I think I may also be a scoundrel, Samandriel. But you’re an honorable gentleman. And you deserve the same.”

Samandriel just stares at him for a long moment, color high. And then-

He buries his face in his hands and _laughs,_ a touch hysterically, but — genuinely amused, Cas likes to think.

“I-I think I’ve made myself ridiculous,” Samandriel gasps out after a moment, raising his head. The red hasn’t left his cheeks, and he still looks somewhat shocked, but there’s unmistakable humor in his eyes.

Relief washes over Cas, and he relaxes back into his chair at last, offering him a tentative smile.

Perhaps they’ll be alright, after all.

“No more than I have.”

The boy bites his lip, at once curious and pained.

“Did you honestly do that?”

“I honestly did.”

He laughs again, disbelieving.

“I shouldn’t be so surprised. I shouldn’t. The way you lifted that carriage, without a second thought —" He huffs. “Most men wouldn’t have thought to even try. _I_ didn’t.”

“Well, I’m beginning to see I’m rather shameless,” Cas acknowledges. “You yourself are tenacious, but — that is different. Regardless, we’re a poor match.”

Cas might not know a lot about such things, but in this case — he knows.

Samandriel lifts his head, sobering a little.

“Well. Maybe that’s true, after all. But — whatever I feel for you, it is sincere, Castiel. You’re wonderful. I — I don’t always understand you, but I can tell that you — you have _so_ much heart. And I truly do admire that, and wish, wholeheartedly, for your happiness.”

“And I admire your energy and dedication,” Cas says honestly, then admits, “But sometimes – it makes me feel old and tired. Although – you also don’t enjoy my sense of humor, and our silences seem more awkward than they should be, and . . . in the long run, I’m not sure either one of us could make the other happy. I’ve learned that — it’s important to try and be happy.”

Samandriel nods, though if anything, his cheeks have gotten even redder.

“I thought I would learn to get your jokes, in time, but — yes. That’s all true. It — it’s a lot of work, to get close to you, and I thought I was excited to rise to the challenge, but — it’s not as hard for some, is it?”

Cas shakes his head.

“I treasure the closeness we have achieved, but — no.”

Samandriel nods again.

“And . . . you’re in love with the prince.”

“He’s not as bad as Anna says,” Cas offers. “He broke a lot of rules for me and my comfort, and I never — I never suffered at his hands, except for my own disappointment, which is not his fault.”

The boy hesitates.

“I ought to feel crushed, now.”

Cas waits, curious himself, and the boy makes a face.

“I feel embarrassed. And — very small.” He sighs. “But - not heartbroken, I don’t think. Actually, I — I feel like—" He bites his lip. “I feel like I do when I’ve done something I shouldn’t and Charlotte’s found out and come to chastise me. Very abashed, because I likely knew better.”

Cas smiles slightly.

“We usually do know better. But . . . as I understand it, you’ve done a lot of good, in coming here. Especially if your heart remains intact, I – I wouldn’t feel sorry over anything.”

Samandriel nods, smile wry.

“I don’t think I will. Because - I _do_ like it, being here. The bakery work is fun, and it’s so exciting when news comes back from where the prints have gone out, or when people want to come to Mills Park and listen to your sister speak. And seeing how the women change, once they come here — it’s just wonderful. I think - Lucy would have cried if you’d tried to give her a sword when she first arrived.”

Cas finds that hard to picture — he would have said Lucy would have tried to run Dean through before they’d quite made it to the castle from New Eden, had she been in Cas’s shoes — but he supposes her comfortable bloodthirst might be considered an improvement, in some way.

“Even you,” Samandriel continues. “You’re so — you’re so _grumpy,_ Castiel _._ ”

Cas scowls, suddenly much less amused.

“I beg your pardon?”

Samandriel just gives him a bright, happy look.

“I was worried about it, and I wrote to Charlotte, and she said that’s a wonderful thing. That if you’re grumpy, it means you feel safe being grumpy.”

“If I’m grumpy, it means people are making me grumpy,” he protests, and Samandriel laughs.

“Yes, but then you _react._ She says people can’t be all good, all the time, so if someone _is —_ it means they’re being trod upon, and something must be done.”

“I — maybe she’s right, but I’m not sure I’m any more — ‘grumpy’ than when I got here,” Cas insists.

“No. No — you — you speak more, now. And you send me away, when you get tired. When you first got here, you just — you just sat quietly and listened until I excused myself. And at first I thought you needed the company, but later I realized, you didn’t feel comfortable telling me you had had enough of it. And when you did, I thought it might be us becoming closer, but — I think it’s just you. Getting better.”

If someone had told Cas ‘getting better’ just meant allowing himself to be grumpy and blunt, he would have been much more amenable to the idea.

“Perhaps,” he says politely, though he remains doubtful, and for some reason, Samandriel laughs again.

“May I still call on you?” he asks abruptly, eyes twinkling. “Or will it be awkward now?”

“I’d like that.” Cas hesitates. “Just — please don’t bring any more chrysanthemums.”

Samandriel looks sheepish.

“I — I really did think you knew, Castiel. I worried about your reasons, sometimes, but I wasn’t — I would never take advantage.”

Cas nods.

“I’m glad. And I did enjoy having them.”

Samandriel looks relieved.

“Then — it wasn’t all bad?”

“No. No, I — I appreciate that you thought you wanted to court me. That was flattering. I’m — well, I’m hardly a very appealing omega, and apparently I’m grumpy, and as we’ve discussed, I turned out to be very shameless.”

Samandriel frowns, at that.

“You’re beautiful, Castiel. Anyone would think so. And your grumpiness is charming, once you know not to be frightened by it, and — and even if those things might make us a bad match — it would have been my honor if you had really accepted my courtship. As for the prince — it’s his honor, too. That you — that you love him.”

Cas looks at him, perplexed, but he can find nothing but the usual sincerity in Samandriel’s eyes.

“Well. You have a great deal of heart yourself, Samandriel,” he finally says. “And much more to offer, beyond that. It will be _someone’s_ great honor to accept your courtship for real, someday.”

As for whether the boy is right or wrong regarding _Cas_ — really, the only person whose opinion matter’s is Dean.

He appreciates it, though.

Samandriel ducks his chin, clasping his hands together.

“Someday, maybe. But maybe I’m too young to be courting someone right now, after all.”

Cas lifts his shoulders.

“Maybe. You’re younger than I am, and for myself — I’ve decided that I’m young, and I’d like to just ‘have a good time,’ for once.”

Samandriel looks surprised.

“Oh. That — that’s fair.”

“You said you were enjoying yourself here,” Cas offers. “Working at the bakery and helping at Mills Park. I don’t know why you’d feel pressured to do anything else.”

Samandriel nods, thoughtful.

“That’s true. That’s a lot, already.”

“It seems like it to me.”

Cas certainly wouldn’t have the energy.

“And — if we’d gotten married, we would have gone back North, but — I’m not ready to leave Sioux Falls, yet.”

Neither is Cas, but he decides it’s probably not necessary to drive the point further.

“Then . . . it would seem you have your answer.”

Samandriel smiles.

“You really are wonderful,” he says softly, and Cas makes a face.

“I’m not, really, but — thank you for saying so.”

Samandriel just shakes his head, sighing.

“I’m intruding on your time with your guests, aren’t I?”

Cas hesitates.

“I think this was an important talk to have. But — I look forward to seeing you again soon.”

With a nod, Samandriel rises.

“Me too, Castiel. I had better go write to Charlotte and tell her what I did, hadn’t I?”

Cas considers this for a moment.

“I think — when it comes to personal affairs,” he says slowly. “It’s perfectly fair to lie to older sisters about it.”

Samandriel laughs.

“Of course. Otherwise little brothers wouldn’t get to _have_ personal affairs, would they?” he jokes, and Cas hadn’t thought of it that way, but-

“Yes. That is very true,” he agrees seriously, and Samandriel beams.

“Have a good evening, Castiel,” he says. “I think I might — take the long way around, to the carriage.”

“Are you alright?”

Samandriel huffs, sheepish.

“Yes. I’m not sure I’m brave enough enough to walk by the girls in the kitchen and have them ask about it, though.”

“Ah.” The evening kitchen shift is just as bad as the morning one for gossip, and while Cas is generally amused by it, he’s never amused by being the _topic_ of it. “Perhaps that’s wise.” He hesitates. “Should I let them know there’s been a misunderstanding?”

“Could you?” Samandriel asks, looking hopeful.

“Of course. I think it should be fine, though.”

“I hope so,” he agrees, and with a small wave, he sets off.

Cas watches him disappear around the corner, contemplative, and eventually, heads back inside.

He’s surprised to find Dean on the bench by the door, evidently waiting.

“Sam and Charlie went upstairs,” he informs him, and Dean jumps, quickly getting to his feet.

When he turns to face Cas, he’s already smiling.

“Yeah. Be-Miss Talbot told me. But, uh. I thought I’d wait for you.”

Cas studies him for a moment, and Dean just looks back, green eyes warm.

Something in Cas’s chest pulls tight, urgent and troubled in the best of ways.

“Dean,” he finally manages, and Dean nods, lifting his brows slightly.

“Yeah?”

“I think I might be a shameless scoundrel.”

Dean’s brows lift.

“Uh. I mean — I don’t — I wouldn’t really say that? But, you know, even if you were, that — that’s fine with me.”

Cas smiles.

And then he steps in close, just looking at him for a moment longer.

“Cas?”

Cas simply shakes his head and kisses him, right there in the foyer of Mills Park.

“May I watch you take a bath tomorrow?” he whispers when they pause for breath, Dean’s hand cupping the back of Cas’s head, keeping him close, their foreheads leaned against one another.

Dean goes still.

And then, with a groan, he tangles his fingers into Cas’s hair and kisses him harder.

Five minutes later, Lucy and Miss Maxwell come down the stairs, Lucy stumbling on the landing and crying, “Oh, good heavens — look away, child!” just as Anna’s voice calls from down the hall-

“ _Really,_ Cas?”

And because Cas is, in fact, a shameless scoundrel — he fists his hand in Dean’s shirt and keeps on kissing him.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: light references to past abuse (the incident in which Cas was whipped), mild sexual content, please let me know if I missed anything.

Anna is glaring at him, and it’s giving Dean scary-Knight-of-Hell flashbacks like nobody’s business.

Except _Cas_ is holding his hand and leaning outrageously into his side, and also Dean’s still feeling a little drunk and stupid from all the kissing in the foyer and something about a bath and _Cas holding his hand and leaning into him,_ and ultimately, being mildly afraid for his life while struggling not to shoo everyone out of the room so he can burrow under the blanket and make out with Cas some more is just making him feel really, really confused.

Anyway, he’s still not totally sure _why_ Cas invited Anna to come drink tea with the rest of them, but she’s there, perched in a chair dragged from someone else’s room and watching the pair of them with narrowed eyes, and if Cas wants to risk Dean’s life and limb by practically snuggling with him on the bed in full view of his scary sister, Dean can suck it up and deal.

(God, Cas smells _so good._ )

“Sooo,” Charlie starts, and Dean shakes himself away from thoughts of bleeding out in Cas’s incredibly firm, well-muscled arms. “How’d your talk with the kid go?”

Cas hums, shifting slightly, and rests his head against Dean’s shoulder.

Across the room, Anna huffs.

Cas just smiles warmly at her.

“Very well. We concluded he was not, in fact, in love with me, and marrying me would be a bad idea.”

Dean frowns.

Who the fuck would conclude that marrying Cas was a bad idea? Is the kid insane? The only reason you wouldn’t marry Cas is if you _couldn’t._

“You sure he wasn’t just trying to be big about it so you wouldn’t feel bad?”

Cas turns slightly, squinting at him.

“Yes. We talked it through. I’d suspected as much, and I was glad to be proven right.”

“Likewise, but you were a lot more patient about it than I would have been,” Anna mutters. “Honestly, I was tempted to throw a chair at him and run him off the estate.”

“That would not have been productive.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Cas, I would have felt _very_ productive.”

Cas rolls his eyes, reaching for one of the cups on the nightstand with his free hand.

“He meant well, Anna.”

“Intentions are useless,” she counters, folding her arms. “Effect is what matters.”

“Well, there was little harm done, ultimately. We remain friends.”

Which – that’s a good thing, because the more friends Cas has, the better, but Dean can’t help a small twinge over the fact that Cas is still going to be friends with someone who was ready to _marry_ him.

“Oh. Awesome,” he offers, uncertain. “That, uh. That’s not usually how that talk goes down, so – so . . . good job, man.”

Charlie snorts, and next to him, Cas pulls away slightly, giving him a puzzled look and sniffing the air.

Which, okay, even if Dean is a master of subtlety when it comes to how he _behaves,_ scent always tells.

“Yes, it was a relief,” Cas says slowly, frowning. “I have no desire to marry him, but I often enjoy his company.”

“I don’t know. I still think you were too easy on him,” Anna interjects, then adds under her breath, “But then, you always were too quick to forgive.”

“Or maybe he’s just _nice,”_ Charlie points out, and Anna huffs.

“Yes, he’s that, too.”

“Anna,” Cas says tiredly. “Samandriel is young, and he’s been a good friend, courtship efforts notwithstanding. He was simply – misguided.”

“Excuses,” she scoffs.

“Sometimes people _do_ have them, Anna.”

“Yes, but you don’t need to make some up _for_ them.”

Beside Dean, Cas lifts his chin, blue eyes narrowing.

And then, very deliberately, he settles back against the pillows, pressed in so close his shoulder rests right on top of Dean’s.

A moment later, he lifts their joined hands onto his thigh.

Dean sucks in a breath.

“I’m not,” Cas says evenly. “I am, however, capable of seeing a person as a _whole._ Unlike you.”

Anna purses her lips, and for a moment, no one says a word.

Then abruptly, she reaches for her teacup, lifting it to her mouth, and just before she does-

Dean swears he sees her lips twitch.

“ _Anyway,_ ” she says once she’s finished the suspiciously long sip of tea, expression incredibly neutral despite her ire a moment ago, “I’m at least glad you settled things.”

“As am I. Thank you.”

She rolls her eyes, though the corner of her mouth ticks up.

“Right. What are your plans for tomorrow, anyway? Are you going out again?”

Dean, at this point, has decided that Cas is probably capable of handling his drama with his sister much better than Dean can, assuming Dean even fully understood it, and decides to just sit back and comfortably brush his chin against Cas’s shoulder, breathing him in while they drink their tea.

“Well, I have work in the morning,” Cas answers, voice all low and rough and stupidly attractive this close to Dean’s ear. “I’d like to have breakfast with everyone, though, if it’s not too early for you.”

“Mm,” Dean mumbles, sipping his tea. “We’ll be there.”

“Wait, how early is ‘early’?” Charlie asks, and Dean frowns, reluctantly pulling back to look at her. “What? Alfie was saying he gets up before _four_ to get to the bakery on time _._ I don’t know when Cas goes to work!”

“Who the hell cares? We’ll be here,” he assures Cas, leaning in close. “Even if you want us here at three.”

Cas huffs a laugh.

“If you’d like to come at three, I’ll certainly try to receive you, but – if you could be here around six, that would be ideal.”

Dean grins.

“Done.”

Cas lifts his cup, eyes still warm and locked on Dean’s.

“Anyway, after work, I was going to spend the evening with Dean.”

Dean perks up, at that.

“What about Sam and Charlie?”

“Sam and Charlie are going to spend the day on a boat looking at river stuff,” Charlie volunteers. “Just in case anyone asks questions.”

“Oh.” Dean hesitates. “Uh. I guess – maybe I should-”

“We’ll brief you,” she says kindly, and he settles back, relieved.

“Awesome. Thanks, guys.”

And then it hits him, what this actually means, that after Cas gets back from work, Dean’s going to have him to himself for the _whole evening_ , and that that evening will probably involve more kissing and more sort-of-cuddling up in the bed and-

“But yes, after work, I’m going to watch Dean take a bath.”

Dean chokes on his tea.

Cas immediately jerks away, alarmed, and Dean scrambles for the handkerchief in his pocket, violently hacking into it while he swipes at his chin.

“Dean?” Cas leans back in, letting go of Dean’s hand to grasp his shoulder, concern etched across his face. “Are you alright?”

Dean just nods vigorously, although there’s still what he’s pretty sure is honey and chamomile dripping into his lungs, because even if there wasn’t, he has no fucking clue what to say here.

When he dares to look up, Charlie and Sam are studying the table with raised eyebrows, and Anna’s face is in her hands.

“Cas,” she sighs. “That’s too much information.”

Cas briefly glances at her, frowning, though his attention quickly turns back to Dean.

“You asked what my plans were.”

“I meant in the _general_ sense.”

“That’s perfectly general-”

“No, it’s _not_ , Cas. Even outside of New Eden, we don’t – you’re supposed to keep intimate things to yourself.”

Cas scowls.

“I _am,_ ” he insists. “It’s not like I was going to tell you about the-”

He suddenly stops, looking down, grip on Dean’s shoulder tightening, and Dean winces.

“The what?” he croaks out, cheeks hot, and Cas hesitates.

Then he ducks in close, lips brushing Dean’s ear and sending a bolt of heat through his core, the phantom taste of dewy raindrops settling on his tongue.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow night,” Cas whispers.

Dean drops the handkerchief.

“Seriously, Cas?” Anna asks, dry, and Cas huffs.

“Don’t ask questions if you don’t care to hear the answers.” He picks the handkerchief back up, dabbing at Dean’s chin. “Would you like a different cup, Dean?”

“Uh.” Dean swallows, then takes a deep breath. “No, that – that one’s fine, that was just, uh, a fluke. I’m good.”

“Alright. If you’re sure.”

“Totally. Thanks, Cas,” he remembers to add, still stuck on _I’ll tell you tomorrow night_ and what on earth could Cas have to say to him that he couldn’t say in front of the closest friends and family he has, that’s apparently _intimate_ and related to Dean and-

Cas smiles slightly, returning the handkerchief to Dean’s lap.

“Of course, Dean,” he says, but before Dean can somehow muster thoughts or words or check to see if Anna’s about to throw her chair at _him_ , there’s a knock on the door.

“Dinner in ten minutes,” someone calls, and Anna swivels in her seat, returning a thank-you before looking back to Cas.

“I assume you’ll be dining up here?”

He nods.

“Yes. Sorry,” he adds, not sounding all that sorry, and Anna studies him for a minute, and then sighs.

“I should have known this about you,” she says cryptically, but then she drains her cup of tea and stands. “I’ll eat with everyone else, but if you wait, I can probably talk Susan into helping me bring some up for you.”

Cas hesitates.

“No, I’ll come help,” he finally says. “I don’t want you to try and poison Dean. He already tends to feel very vulnerable and unsafe, Anna.”

Dean straightens, furrowing his brow.

“Uh, actually-”

“I’m not going to _poison_ the crown prince of Winchester, Cas.” She makes a face, glancing at Sam. “Or the other one.”

“And I appreciate that,” Dean starts, “But to be clear-”

“Yes, but you might try some other mischief.” Cas glances at Dean, then adds solemnly, “I’ll ensure your food is safe, Dean, I promise.”

“Right, and that – that’s really great, but-”

“’Never do an enemy a small injury,’” Anna quotes, unimpressed. “If I’m not ready to murder him, I’m not going to do anything else that will piss him off.”

“Which is super reassuring, but-”

“That’s not true,” Cas argues. “You kept stealing that medicine from Rebecca Adler’s toilette that had Father on the commode for _hours_ -”

“Wait, what?” Dean asks, suddenly very concerned, especially since Anna’s now looking _incredibly_ thoughtful at the door.

“Huh. I’d forgotten about that,” she muses, and Cas sucks in a breath.

“You see?” he says, triumphant, although Dean’s not sure this was an entirely productive conversation to have had, overall. “You can’t be trusted.”

“Harmless pranks,” Anna scoffs, a glint in her eye, and Cas’s gaze hardens.

“I won’t let you,” he retorts. “And if you _do_ manage something, and Dean is too preoccupied with unsettled bowels to let me watch him bathe or wash my hair or be-uh. Do anything else, then I – I will enact retribution.”

Anna lifts her brows.

“I’ve never seen you enact retribution in your life, Cas.”

Cas grimaces, narrowing his eyes.

“I don’t fear you, Anna. But I will give you reason to fear _me,_ if I must.”

She studies him for a moment.

And then she laughs, shaking her head.

“Alright. I’ll leave his food alone, Cas. But come help me, if it makes you feel better.”

He lifts his chin, giving her a suspicious look.

“It does.” And then, after a moment of hesitation-

He suddenly leans into Dean, hard, and kisses him.

“I will return for you shortly,” he promises lowly, and then he’s sliding off the bed and stalking to the door and all Dean can do is stare after him with what’s probably the dumbest fucking expression he’s ever worn in his life.

(He should probably just be grateful he didn’t _whimper_ when Cas pulled away.)

Anyway, he can see Anna squinting at him, and Dean sincerely hopes she’s not about to try and say anything, or at least not anything that requires a response from him, but fortunately, she just moves on to look at Sam and Charlie.

“Is this customary behavior?”

“Uh, kind of?” Sam offers, and beside him, Charlie lifts her shoulders.

“The kissing’s kinda new and I think it’s breaking his brain.”

“I see,” Anna says, frowning at Dean again, and then sighs. “Very well. Come on, Cas.”

And then she tugs Cas into the hall and out of sight.

Dean flomps back against the pillows once they’re gone, heart racing, and the three of them sit in silence for a moment, Dean still reliving the firm press of Cas’s lips against his, Cas’s scent lingering in his nostrils, a delicious sort of tease that has every muscle in his body feeling restless beneath the skin.

“Hey, Dean?” Sam says suddenly, and Dean swallows, forcing himself to look at his brother instead of getting lost in remembered sensation like he wants to.

He hopes Cas comes back _soon._

“Yeah, Sammy?”

Sam smiles, strangely bland.

And then:

“Why did you tell Cas our horse just died?”

Sam and Charlie hug him goodbye and head to the carriage first when it’s time for them to depart, but Dean lingers with Cas in the foyer, hands in his pockets and color in his cheeks, his eyes flicking between Cas’s face and the floor.

Cas clasps his hands together, suddenly a little unsure.

“You seem . . . embarrassed,” he says, after they’ve stood in silence for a few seconds. “Why?”

Dean looks startled, and then he sort of smiles, rubbing his neck.

“Uh. Just . . . it’s time to say good night.”

“Alright.” Cas waits, and Dean bites his lip.

“And . . . I’m not really sure how I should do that.”

Cas hesitates.

“Well, the first night, you hugged me.”

“Yeah, I – I did,” Dean agrees, shoulders drawing up a little more. “I was – you know. Really happy to see you again.”

“Oh. But then – last night, you didn’t,” Cas points out, studying him, and Dean huffs.

“Well, no, ‘cause I thought you might marry Samandriel. And I didn’t think I should be touching you.”

“Oh.” Cas shifts a little closer. “Well, I’m not. And – for what it’s worth, _I_ think you should be touching me.”

Dean swallows.

“Y-yeah?” he stammers, and Cas nods.

“So . . . how should you say good night to me, in that case?”

“Uh. Well. I should probably . . . I don’t know, push you up against the door and kiss you and hope nobody comes down the stairs?”

Cas stills.

“Like the last night,” he says slowly. “In Lawrence.”

“Yeah. A – a little like that.”

“I liked being between you and the door,” Cas offers. “I liked all the kisses you’ve ever given me, of course, and I liked sitting on you in the carriage this morning, but that – that was nice, too.”

Dean’s lips part.

“Oh.”

It occurs to Cas, then, what all his favorite kisses have in common.

“Actually – I like the ones where we’re close together best,” he adds, then gives Dean an uncertain look. “What, um, what is your favorite way to kiss?”

Dean blinks, just staring for a moment.

And then he swiftly moves forward and nudges Cas toward the door, hand warm where it gently pushes at his chest.

“You,” is all he says.

Then he ducks in close and fits his mouth to Cas’s.

Alex coughs from the landing some time later, when Cas is tugging at Dean’s cravat, is somehow eager to have his hands on _skin,_ the texture of Dean’s grey jacket all wrong beneath his palms, and more than ever, Cas misses his room at the castle, misses having a door that belonged to him and a space he could do whatever he pleased in, even if whatever he pleased was kissing Dean until well past someone else’s deeply unjust curfew.

“Five minutes,” Cas mutters, at last yanking it free, and then he carelessly thumbs aside Dean’s collar and slips his fingers through, sliding his palm around the side of Dean’s neck, where the skin is warm and smooth and he can feel Dean’s pulse racing beneath his fingertips, and Dean groans and leans into him harder, a weight that _should_ be uncomfortable but just leaves Cas with a strange sense of smug elation, and then-

“It’s already nine-twenty, Castiel,” Alex says, gentle but pointed, and Cas huffs, reluctantly turning his face.

Dean’s mouth immediately moves to his jaw, brushing against the damnable stubble there, and Cas gives her a pleading look even as he tilts his head, hoping Dean’s lips will land there next.

She returns the look with a sympathetic, if faintly disbelieving one.

“If he can’t stick to curfew, he’s not allowed to come at all.”

Dismay fills him, though Dean’s lips slide below the corner of his jaw, soft against his throat, sending a shiver of pleasure down his spine as they begin their descent.

“Dean,” he manages, thumbing across his neck, his other hand tugging at Dean’s jacket sleeve. “Dean, you have to go.”

Dean makes a disapproving noise, nosing along Cas’s throat, and Cas swallows, angling his head a little more-

“Right,” Alex says dryly. “Dean, if you don’t leave, I’m going to tell Cas about the time with the drawers.”

“Don’t care,” Dean mutters against Cas’s neck, apparently paying more attention than Cas thought. “Drawers are awesome. Cas wears ‘em. Go away, Alex.”

Dean’s being rude and uncooperative, right now. Cas should disapprove.

He thinks he’d like to haul Dean up the stairs to his room and kiss him for the rest of the _night_.

“Okay, then I’ll write _Jody_ and tell her you broke her rules.”

Dean freezes.

To Cas’s great disappointment, he slowly pulls away.

“Son of a bitch,” he huffs, giving Cas a miserable look, freckles stark against the red in his cheeks.

Cas’s chest aches, hands itching to pull him back.

“I’m sorry I live here,” he says, wondering if he and Anna could rent a cottage or a small townhome, one where he could entertain guests at his leisure, just in case Dean ever came back, and Alex snorts.

“Guys. You’re going to see each other in less than twelve hours. You’ll be _fine_. Good night, Dean.”

Dean swallows, halfheartedly straightening Cas’s jacket.

“I – I’ll see you in the morning,” he says quietly, and Cas nods. Less than twelve hours or not, it feels much too far away.

“Yes.” Cas hesitates, then lightly touches his cravat, and Dean looks down, surprised. “You should fix this.”

“Oh. Yeah, I – I hadn’t realized you undid it.”

Cas lifts his shoulders.

“I wanted to touch your skin.”

Dean inhales sharply, eyes flying back to Cas’s.

“Dean,” Alex interjects dryly. “Out.”

“But-” he starts, expression pained, eyes still locked to Cas’s, and Alex opens her mouth.

And then someone knocks on the door behind Cas, startling him.

“Dean?” Sam calls, a little muffled. “Are you coming?”

Cas suppresses a sigh.

Tomorrow, he’s locking his door and starting the kissing _early._

Anyway, Cas supposes it is, overall, a very satisfactory goodnight to have been given, but it doesn’t make it any easier when he washes his face and changes for bed, Dean’s scent lingering against the pillows when he climbs in and presses his face to them.

Which – Cas _likes_ Dean’s scent in his bed. He likes it very much. He likes it so much that he wishes Mills Park didn’t have their rule about men staying the night, that Dean could have sent Sam and Charlie back alone, could be bedding Cas _tonight._ As little actual detail about bedding is provided in novels, and as many ridiculous things tend to happen in them, to the point that Cas can never be sure what’s reflective of reality – he’s fairly certain that after bedding, people sometimes sleep together.

Cas wants to sleep with Dean, desperately. He wants to lie close, breathing in his scent, and he wants to drift off to sleep just like that, and in the morning, he wants to open his eyes and look to the side and see Dean’s face before he sees anything else, before he even has time to think.

He wants to know if Dean is as beautiful in sleep as he is when he’s awake.

Cas inhales, slow and deep, nosing the pillow Dean mostly rested against, and he can’t help the smile that pulls at his lips. Dean can’t stay after he beds Cas tomorrow, and Cas still doesn’t know how long bedding takes, but if he plans it right, there may still be time to lie together before anyone comes to chase him off.

Cas didn’t know, last time they lay in bed together, skin overwhelmingly pressed to skin, that there was anything else to the bedding. He was still trying to process the kissing, still afraid of what came after.

Now, there’s a part of him that can’t wait.

Because yes, there’s a pang in his chest, some nauseous twinge in his stomach when he thinks of Dean leaving after tomorrow, but Dean will be waiting after work and Cas will watch him bathe and Dean might _help_ Cas take his own bath and Cas is reasonably confident at this point that there will be more kissing.

And then Cas will offer to let Dean bed him and if Dean says yes, they’ll be _close,_ and Cas will get to give him something, and if it’s nice, then maybe – maybe when Dean goes back, he’ll remember that it was nice, that it’s something Cas will give him, and perhaps -

Perhaps, at the very least, he’ll write Cas letters, letters that aren’t quite so sad and final as the other one he sent, letters that say he thinks of Cas sometimes, the way Cas knows he will always, always think of Dean.

And even if he doesn’t – this is more than Cas expected to get, and he’s grateful. He’s going to remember all their kisses for a long, long time, and that -

That will have to be enough.

When he comes down to the terrace in the morning, Susan and Vivian have already set the table and carried out breakfast in his stead, eyes twinkling as they bustle back into the house, telling him to enjoy.

On one side of the table, the chairs have been pushed aside, Dean hovering sheepishly behind an unfamiliar metal bench, a thick tartan blanket in his hands.

“I, uh. I thought – you said you were cold, the other morning, and – I mean, it was pretty comfortable last time, in your garden, and since this bench was lying around at Bobby’s and it fit in the carriage-”

“Barely,” Charlie mutters.

“Yeah, so anyway, I just thought – maybe we could-”

Kissing Dean on the terrace, the early dawn misty and blue-gold behind him, is also a very nice way to kiss.

And when he discovers that the blanket Dean has brought is, in fact, from _his_ bed at Bobby’s -

Cas politely insists on waiting to see them off at the end of the meal, and once Dean’s kissed him some more and Sam has forcibly separated them so they can leave and Cas can go to work-

Cas carefully smuggles the blanket up to his room and into his armoire, and try as he might, can’t bring himself to feel guilty at all.

“Mr. Novak!” Mr. Dryer calls, once Cas has made it to the ship. “Well, aren’t you lookin’ well this morning?”

Cas blinks, glancing down at himself.

“Am I?”

Mr. Dryer nods.

“Saw you comin’ down the docks and thought the sun was rising all over again, you’re glowin’ so much. Gave us all a shock.”

Cas furrows his brow, confused.

“I don’t understand.”

The other man shrugs.

“Well, we heard rumors his highness was in town. Guess we wouldn’t have thought you’d be too happy to see him, all things considered.”

Cas immediately shakes his head.

“I was. I’ll always be happy to see Dean, he – he’s my – my best friend,” Cas finishes, remembering Dean’s letter, and though it’s the first time he’s used the words, they feel right.

Mr. Dryer lifts his brows.

“I see,” he says slowly, expression turning thoughtful. “Well, that’s . . . what about that kid at the bakery?”

It takes Cas a moment, and then he remembers that other people, also, would have known what Samandriel was up to.

“Ah, there was a misunderstanding. I didn’t know he was trying to court me, and he doesn’t really want to marry me, anyway. It’s all settled now, though,” he adds, hoping the explanation will suffice – he’s impatient to get to work, so he can finish and return home to see Dean – and Mr. Dryer blinks.

Then he chuckles.

“Alright, I think I get it, now. Is that why the prince came around, then? Is he gonna court you?”

Cas’s good mood dims.

“No, of course not. He’s leaving tomorrow.”

“So? He can always come back.”

“I – perhaps, but I don’t think he will.”

Mr. Dryer frowns.

“Didn’t you say he was your best friend?”

Cas hesitates.

“Yes. And – he’s told me I’m his. His best friend.”

Probably, anyway.

Mr. Dryer clicks his tongue.

“Well, y’see? Best friends don’t stay away from each other. I’m sure your prince’ll be back before you know it.”

Cas gives him a sharp look. He didn’t know best friendship was relevant in the matter of whether or not Dean would visit.

“Is that – is that always how it is, in Winchester? If you’re best friends, you try to see each other?”

“Well, of course, son. My own best friend married a Northern girl and moved up there to apprentice with her father, since she ain’t got brothers, but he still comes down once a year on my birthday. Has done for the last twenty years, almost.”

Cas furrows his brow, considering.

Obviously, he’ll just be grateful if Dean comes back at all, but knowing he’ll come and still having to wait a _year_ for it sounds like torture.

“Of course,” Mr. Dryer continues, a glint in his eye. “It’s four days’ of traveling for us. If he lived less than a day’s trip away, we’d be visiting every month, I bet.”

Cas swallows.

“Lawrence is less than a day’s trip away.”

“Huh, now that you mention it, it sure is, isn’t it?”

“I – I don’t think I’ve told him he’s my best friend,” Cas adds slowly, hope budding, albeit cautiously. “He may not know he’s supposed to come.”

Mr. Dryer bites his lip, eyes twinkling.

“Well, I reckon you oughta do that, son. Let him know. I can’t say I cared much for his part in all that Tradition nonsense, but Lord Robert’s always said he was a good boy. I’m sure if you let him know how things are – well, he’ll do just what he should.”

Cas nods, still unsure.

“And – he should? Visit me? If we’re best friends?”

“Oh, you bet,” Mr. Dryer confirms, nodding sagely. “Should be knockin’ on your door as often as he can.”

“Alright.” Cas doesn’t want to make unreasonable requests, but it sounds like actually, this is perhaps one of those societal things he doesn’t understand but that they’re all duty-bound to follow, in which case, _Cas_ wouldn’t be the one being unreasonable. “But what if that’s not very often?”

“Well, that could be,” Mr. Dryer agrees, mild. “Of course, _my_ best friend always says he’s coming here for business, Sioux Falls bein’ a trade hub and all that. Sometimes you just gotta make up excuses to see each other, but if you’re _really_ best friends . . . eh, you find a way.”

“Oh.” Best friendship sounds like a rather serious pact in Winchester, according to Mr. Dryer. Cas worries, then, that Dean was simply being kind when he said that in his letter, but he had sounded _so_ sincere – unpleasantly so, given the crushing finality of it all – and Cas doesn’t think Dean is the sort to lie about something that is apparently this important. “I’ll tell him, then.”

“You do that, Mr. Novak,” he says cheerily. “But you better finish your work first, y’hear?”

Cas’s face heats. How long has he been standing on the dock, asking advice? Though Mr. Dryer _did_ instigate the conversation, or else Cas would have started by now.

Still . . . he doesn’t regret it.

“Of course,” he mumbles. “Thank you for – thank you.”

And then he quickly gets to work.

He practically races home as soon as Mr. Dryer declares him finished, and he can tell by the absurd amount of whispers and giggles in the kitchen, their volume rising when he passes in view of the archway, that Dean must already be here.

He pauses at the entry, catching Meredith’s eye.

“Is he-”

“Upstairs.” She smirks. “With _two_ baths.”

Cas’s stomach tightens, rather pleasantly.

“Ah. Thank you,” he says, as calmly as he can mange, and without another word, he hurries on toward the stairs.

Another loud chorus of laughter follows in his wake, but it just makes him smile.

He takes the steps two at a time, and when he makes it to his room, Dean is pouring a steaming bucket into one of two tubs, sleeves rolled up to reveal strong, tanned forearms. Cas stares at them for a moment, suddenly realizing he’s about to get to see the rest of Dean’s arms, the rest of Dean’s whole _body,_ when he takes his bath.

His heart kicks inside his chest.

“Are we going to bathe at the same time?” he asks, and Dean jerks, glancing up as the last bit of water drains out.

His eyes light up, a smile spreading across his face, and Cas doesn’t understand, not how a person can look so beautiful, nor how they can look that – that _happy_ to see someone, let alone how that someone can be Cas.

“Hey, Cas. How was work?”

Cas swallows.

“Far too many hours,” he manages, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him. Locking it, he adds, “And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Well, that’s up to you,” Dean says, settling back on his heels, still smiling. “I figured I’d leave us options, and this way, nobody has to go back downstairs for a while.”

“Good,” Cas agrees. Ideally, Dean wouldn’t go back downstairs until he had to leave. “But if we bathe at the same time, you can’t help me with mine.”

Dean’s smile slips a little, but Cas can tell, instinctively, that it’s not a bad thing.

“Oh. You, uh. You still want that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. And . . . do you still wanna – watch me?”

“Yes,” Cas says again, drawing a little closer. “I can help you, too. If you’d like.”

Dean licks his lips.

“Yeah?”

“Having someone wash your hair feels very nice,” Cas offers.

He can’t help but think washing someone else’s hair – washing _Dean’s_ hair – will also feel nice.

Dean coughs.

“Okay. Then . . . sure. If you, uh. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t.” Cas clears his throat. “You should undress.”

Dean’s brows lift.

“The, uh. The other bath’s not full, yet.”

“Oh.” Cas hesitates, peering at the water level. “It almost is. I’ll bring up the rest of the water while you remove your clothes.”

Dean blinks, and Cas hastens forward, reaching for the buckets.

“Hey, you don’t have to-”

“I will. I’ll hurry,” Cas promises, and then he scrambles to unlock the door. “Wait for me.”

He leaves without waiting for a response.

Mysteriously, the evening kitchen shift turns out to be _incredibly_ disappointed when Dean doesn’t reappear with him.

“What? But I thought the prince was fixing your baths!”

Cas nods, shoving the first bucket under the tap and turning the spigot.

“He was. I’m going to finish.”

“Well, where is _he_ , then?”

“In my room, taking off his clothes.”

The kitchen goes utterly silent, save the sound of water splashing into the bucket.

Someone clears their throat.

“Say, would you like me to help you carry the buckets up?”

Cas frowns, glancing over his shoulder to find Meredith giving him a hopeful look.

“No. You might see him.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” she protests, and he hesitates.

“Yes, there is. You . . . aren’t supposed to look at naked men,” he tries, reasonably confident this rule of decency applies in the rest of Winchester, too.

Still, she doesn’t seem impressed.

“I – but _you’re_ going to look at him!”

Cas nods, turning back to the bucket.

“I am,” he agrees, warmed at the thought of what awaits him on his return.

“Well, how come it’s okay for you and not for me?”

It’s a fair point, and Cas considers it carefully for a moment.

“Because I’m shameless,” he finally settles on, and then glances back, smiling at her. “But you may help me carry them to the top of the stairs, if you want.”

The other girls dissolve into laughter, drowning out her indignant cry.

In the end, several of them follow him up the stairs bearing pots and pitchers full of water – “Just in case the buckets aren’t quite enough!” - and though there are halfhearted complaints when he sends them all back down without even opening the door, he senses that most of them are amused.

Still, he waits until the last of them have disappeared around the corner before he turns, taking a deep breath and reaching for the handle.

He’s not sure _why_ the prospect of Dean’s nakedness is quite so thrilling to him, but since everyone else in the kitchen seemed to feel the same, he decides it must be normal. Dean is very beautiful, after all. The more of him you can see, the more beauty there is to fully appreciate, and obviously, anyone with any sense of art in their soul would like to do so.

Cas clears his throat, depressing the handle and pushing it open.

“I think I have more than enough to finish filling them,” he starts, stepping inside. “The evening shift was kind enough to – to – um . . .”

Cas trails off, words lost as he takes in the sight of Dean’s back and legs, utterly bare and perfectly formed, at least to his mind. He finds his gaze sticking on the firm swell of Dean’s posterior, but only briefly, because then Dean whirls, wrists still caught in his shirtcuffs, and-

“Oh,” Cas says, staring. It shouldn’t be of much interest, given that he has one himself and he generally ignores it, but somehow . . .

The shirt suddenly obscures his vision, and Cas tries not to feel too disappointed.

He intends for Dean to bed him tonight, after all; it’s perfectly reasonable to want to know what something looks like if it’s going to be put inside of him, at some point.

Of course, Dean doesn’t know that yet, and it’s possible he may still say _no._

“Cas?” Dean prompts, strained, and Cas nods, studying the outline behind the shirt.

“Yes?” he says politely. He’s fairly confident it will have to be erect before it _can_ be put inside him, or before Dean will _want_ to, and he wishes he’d paid more attention the night of the festival, before Dean covered it with the pillow, when it _was_ and he could see-

“Please stop staring at my dick.”

“I’m not,” Cas says slowly. “You put a shirt in front of it.”

There’s a choked laugh.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did, Cas. Because I wanted you to stop staring at it.”

Reluctantly, Cas pulls his gaze away. Hopefully, he’ll have another chance later, though he supposes it doesn’t really matter. Regardless of what it _looks_ like, Cas will let Dean do as he pleases with it.

So long as Dean wants to - Cas will let him do anything.

“You should get in,” Cas says, setting the buckets by the fireplace. “I’ll wait to heat the water until it’s my turn.”

Dean smirks for some reason.

“What, you don’t think you’re gonna want it cold?”

Cas makes a face.

“Of course not. Why would anyone want a _cold_ bath?”

Dean chuckles and shakes his head, tossing his shirt aside and turning toward the tub.

“Sometimes you need one, Cas,” he says, frustratingly vague, and then he’s stepping into the tub and slowly lowering himself, muscles tense as he braces his hands against the sides and eases into the water, and Cas forgets all about his questions.

Dean sighs as he settles in, eyes falling shut, and though he hasn’t been invited yet, Cas can’t help but drift toward the tub, anxious to assist, or at least have a closer look.

“Washcloth and soap should be right there,” Dean murmurs, and encouraged, Cas closes the rest of the distance, getting to his knees beside the tub, eager to begin.

Of course, as soon as he does, he realizes the flaw in this plan.

Dean opens his eyes, lifting his brows.

“What’s wrong?”

Cas sighs.

“What if I get wet when I touch you?”

Dean’s eyes widen.

“Oh. Uh. Do you – do you think you will?”

Cas stares.

“I don’t know how I couldn’t.”

Dean’s cheeks seem to darken, right before his eyes.

“Oh. Wow. I – I guess – I mean, if you wanna – I don’t – _I_ probably shouldn’t, but if you need to, you can totally, uh – take care of it. Whatever – whatever makes you comfortable.”

Cas squints.

“Yes, but _how_ should I take care of it?”

There’s an audible swallow.

“Uh. I mean . . .”

Nothing follows, Dean just staring at him, green eyes big and full lips parted, his face flushed around them.

Which – as pretty a sight as it is, it’s still not useful advice.

Cas frowns, and Dean licks his lips.

“How, uh. How do you usually take care of it?” His voice is pitched low, a rough quality to the words, and Cas’s desperation to begin suddenly grows.

“Dean,” he huffs. “I’ve never helped anyone bathe before. That’s what I’m _asking._ Will rolling up my sleeves be adequate? Do I need to take off my shirt? Do I need to undress _fully_?”

Dean blinks.

And then he makes a funny, choked noise, shoulders drawing up.

“Oh. You meant – of course you weren’t – uh. Just your shirt is probably fine. I guess your pants might get splashed a little, but – it’s all going in the laundry, anyway, isn’t it?”

Cas hesitates.

“It is,” he agrees. “And it’s warm in here, with the fire. I should just take all of it off.”

And then he stands up and starts undressing, anxious to get his hands on Dean – Cas would hate for his bath to get cold, after all – and when he’s finally shaken free of his sleeves and pushed down his drawers and trousers, haphazardly folding it all before kicking the pile to the side, he finds Dean staring at him.

“What?”

“Nothin’. You, uh. You’re still really pleasant to look at, for the record.”

“Oh.” Cas’s cheeks warm. “That’s good. I like when you look at me.”

Dean swallows.

“Okay. Well, I – I like looking at you.”

“I like looking at you, too,” Cas informs him, though he thinks it should be obvious, and Dean bites his lip.

“I guess we really do fit perfect, huh?”

Cas raises a brow.

“We’re not touching, right now.”

“Right, right – probably for the best – but, you know. Metaphorically. We’re . . . compatible.”

Cas blinks, considering.

He likes the idea of that, of just – being suited to Dean, and Dean being suited to him.

“Is that why we’re best friends?”

Dean lifts his brows, surprised.

“Uh. I mean – kind of, yeah, because we _are_ compatible, although – liking to look at each other and stuff is – that’s kind of separate.”

“Ah.” Cas clears his throat, kneeling by the tub and giving Dean a serious look. “You are, by the way. My best friend.”

Dean looks back at him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Cas echoes. “And . . . you said I was yours.”

Dean nods slowly.

“Yeah.”

“Alright. Just so you’re aware,” he adds, not quite brave enough to remind Dean that this relationship comes with certain expectations.

After all, this could turn out to be another occasion on which Cas is not entitled to the same expectations that others might be.

Dean’s expression softens.

“Yeah. Thanks. I – I’m glad. That we’re best friends. That you came to Lawrence.” Dean stills, wincing. “Not – I’m not glad about all the shitty parts, but I mean-”

“I understand, Dean,” Cas interrupts, smiling, and raises the cloth. “I’m glad, too. But – I’d like to bathe you, now.”

Dean shuts his mouth, blinking.

Then he nods.

“Okay.”

Cas hesitates, not sure where to start. When he’d been the one in the tub, Dean’s eyes following his every move, he’d hardly been paying attention to what he was actually doing, washing himself on instinct, much more focused on the feel of Dean’s gaze than on what his hands were doing.

Now, though – now, Dean will be able to feel _him_.

Slowly, Cas reaches out, bringing the cloth down where Dean’s neck meets his shoulder, conscious of Dean’s eyes on him. It’s embarrassing in a strangely pleasant sort of way, and he can feel his own face warm as he slowly begins to work, drawing the cloth across Dean’s skin, unexpectedly transfixed by the shape of him beneath his hand, even through the cloth. He lingers on Dean’s shoulders, lovely as they are, and some part of him wishes he could set the cloth aside altogether, could touch the warm, damp skin beneath it, palms as bare as Dean is.

Of course, that would be difficult to justify, so Cas simply settles for this, taking his time as he moves across Dean’s upper body.

“I like your chest,” he murmurs absently, watching it rise and fall as he slides the cloth across it, the skin underneath rosy from the heat. “Especially – when you kiss me, and it’s pressed to mine. You . . . you always feel so good when I touch you.”

Dean makes a small, choked noise, muscles tensing.

“You have no idea, buddy,” he mutters, and Cas gives him a quizzical look.

“Is something wrong?”

Dean just shakes his head, jaw tight.

“Nope. Everything’s peachy.”

Cas hesitates, hand stilling over Dean’s heart. Through the cloth, he can feel its strong, steady beat, though it seems too fast for what they’re doing.

He frowns.

“Are you sure you’re well?”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

After a moment, Cas nods, resuming his motions. His own pulse is quicker than it should be, though it often is, when he’s with Dean.

He sweeps the cloth across Dean’s sternum, over his ribs, and when he slides it beneath the water, he feels Dean’s stomach tighten, muscles drawing in. He traces the dip, smoothing the cloth down and lingering over the softness at his waist, and when he brushes Dean’s hip, he feels him flinch.

Cas glances up, only to find Dean’s eyes shut tight, his jaw clenched, tension in his shoulders.

His hands are gripping the edge of the tub so hard the knuckles have turned white.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?” It comes out terse, and Cas frowns.

“You’re tense.”

“Yeah, Cas. You’re touching me.”

“It doesn’t feel good?”

Dean lets out a short laugh.

“It does. Kinda feels _too_ good, Cas.”

“Too good?” Cas echoes, perplexed, and Dean sighs.

“This is a really sexy bath, buddy. I’m trying not to lose it.”

Cas stares at him, struggling to understand.

And then it hits him.

“I – am I – Dean, is this – ‘sexy torture?’”

Dean chokes a little, eyes flying open.

“Is this – what?”

“Sexy torture. Like the kind that happens in sex dungeons.”

Dean blinks, looking a little lost.

“I . . . I mean . . . not exactly, but – kind of?”

“Oh.” It’s unexpected. Cas can’t say he thought about it, beyond the explanation he was given, but if he _had,_ he would have assumed it was the sort of thing you’d know about before you did it. “Then . . . when it’s my turn, you’ll torture me. In the sexy way.”

Dean swallows.

“Uh. I don’t know. You might not be affected by it.”

Cas doesn’t remember feeling tortured when Dean washed his hair, but perhaps that’s different.

“We’ll see,” he decides. “But – is it alright if I continue?”

Dean snorts.

“Knock yourself out.”

Cas hesitates.

“Though – I don’t want you to beg for mercy, Dean. You can just tell me to stop, before it reaches that point.”

Dean just looks at him for a moment, amusement and something Cas can’t quite identify in his gaze.

“Cas. When you beg for mercy from sexy torture – do you know what kind of mercy you’re begging for?”

Cas lifts a brow.

“I imagine you’re begging someone to stop,” he says, and then he sweeps the cloth lower.

Something hard brushes against the back of his hand, and Dean goes still.

Curious, Cas smoothes the cloth toward it, instinctively fitting his hand to its contours, and only when Dean hisses, hips jerking, does Cas realize what he’s done.

He freezes, staring into Dean’s wide eyes, Dean’s penis thick in his hand beneath the cloth.

Dean swallows.

“Uh, Cas-”

Impulsively, Cas grips it a little tighter, and in response, Dean shudders.

Cas pauses, heart quickening inside his chest.

“Did I hurt you?”

Dean blinks rapidly, eyes huge as he looks at Cas.

“No,” he says breathlessly. “No, but-”

Cas nods, slowly sliding the cloth along Dean’s length, not yet satisfied with the exploration, and Dean cuts off, some soft, inarticulate noise escaping his lips.

“It feels – large,” Cas murmurs, tempted to abandon the cloth and feel it with his bare hand, to ask Dean to stand and let him look. The skin is silky where his fingertips just barely brush it, beyond the material of the cloth, and he swears he can feel it twitch in his grasp, though he imagines that’s some trick of the water. He shifts his grip, trying to get a better idea of its dimensions, and draws his hand back down again.

Dean makes another choked sound, hips surging forward, and Cas relaxes his hold, startled.

“Dean?”

Dean’s eyes are shut now, hands back to gripping the edges of the tub, and Cas frowns.

“Dean. Are you alright?”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah, I – I’m good.”

Cas studies him for a moment, the tightness in his jaw, the tension that seems to be present in every muscle Cas can see, and suddenly, he notices the change in the air around him, that potent, rich quality present in Dean’s scent, a familiar echo of the night of the festival.

He sucks in a breath, a dizzying realization hitting him.

He just meant to touch, to grant himself a better idea of what to expect, come the bedding, but Dean is hard and Cas’s hand is wrapped around him, sliding along it, albeit slowly and through a washcloth, and all in all, it’s not something Cas is unfamiliar with.

In some ways, this is the way Cas touches _himself_ , the way even normal men are not supposed to, the way he can’t help but give in to when his heat seems to smother him and he can think of no other way to hold it back.

He swallows, mouth suddenly dry, heat coiling at the base of his spine.

And then he tightens his fist, swiftly dragging the cloth up, and Dean chokes.

“ _Cas_ -”

“When you bed omegas, how uncomfortable are they?”

Dean goes still, and Cas is just starting to wonder what will happen if he continues, if he sets aside the cloth and puts his palm to Dean, if he invites Dean to do it _now,_ to lay Cas out on the bed and take the rest of his pleasure-

But then Dean jerks, hand snapping out, seizing Cas’s wrist and pulling it away. Cas is too startled to resist, and he nearly loses the cloth in the process.

“They’re not, Cas,” Dean says hoarsely. “I don’t bed people if they’re not comfortable. But - you can’t touch it.”

Cas frowns, instinctively resentful at being told he’s not allowed to touch any part of Dean, though it’s Dean’s body, and it’s certainly his prerogative to make such rules.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not going to appreciate what happens when you do,” Dean mutters, and then he tugs the washcloth free of Cas’s hand, leaning forward and reaching behind himself, roughly scrubbing at his back with the cloth, jaw set. His legs get only a cursory pass over them, Cas frowning as he looks on, and a few moments later, Dean sets the cloth aside. “There. All clean. We should get your water boiling.”

Cas studies him for a moment, upset by the change in his tone, the sudden tension he feels in the atmosphere.

He feels – cheated, somehow.

“Do you let others touch it?” he asks abruptly, and Dean gives him a sharp look.

“Sometimes.”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“When?”

Dean huffs.

“It’s not important.”

Cas just looks back at him, considering.

“When you bed them,” he concludes, and Dean scowls.

“ _Cas_. Other people touching my dick, way, way in the past, is really not relevant to us.”

Cas shrugs. It _is_ relevant, in the sense that Dean will be bedding Cas soon enough – assuming he wants to – and Cas would like to know what his part and privileges will be in the process, but he’s not sure he’s ready to discuss that.

Although-

“When _was_ the last time you bedded someone?”

Dean lifts his brows, incredulous.

“Seriously?”

“Yes.” Cas isn’t sure _why_ he’s asking, since he knows Dean has bedded others, and will doubtless bed others again, but he feels inexplicably curious over it, nonetheless.

“I – christ. Uh.” Dean squints. “The last New Year, I think?”

Which – the idea of the answer having been ‘last week’ prompts a somewhat unpleasant feeling in his gut, but for it to have been nearly a year . . .

“So . . . you don’t feel the need to bed omegas very often,” he says slowly, and Dean wrinkles his nose. “Or – are all alphas like that?” Cas frowns. “But what about your ruts? Even omegas want to be bedded during their heats. Don’t you . . .”

Dean just stares for a moment.

“I – I mean – I’m not like, a sex _fiend_ , but – I like, uh, bedding people pretty often, and yeah, I like to be with someone during my ruts, but – but I had _you_.”

Cas blinks.

“You never bedded me.”

“Well, no, but – I wasn’t – I wasn’t about to bed someone _else._ You know?”

Cas really doesn’t.

“Because your council would have been upset?”

“Uh. I – yeah, they would have, but also – I – I didn’t – that wouldn’t have been-” Dean abruptly stops, shutting his mouth.

Then he sniffs, reaching for the edges of the tub.

“I think I’m clean now,” he mumbles. “Your turn.”

“Oh.” Cas hesitates, sitting back on his heels, trying to process all of that. “Then . . . you must be eager to bed someone again.”

Dean grimaces.

“Not really,” he says. “I’m good.”

Which doesn’t bode well for Cas’s plans, but – he supposes he’ll have to wait and see.

“I haven’t done your hair yet,” he points out, and Dean pauses.

Then he sighs, shaking his head.

“I washed it this morning. I’ll be okay.”

Cas does his best to swallow his disappointment.

“Alright. I’ll . . . get you a towel, I suppose.”

He stands, heading for the dresser and trying to console himself with the bath _he’s_ about to receive – assuming Dean’s still in the mood for it – but when he turns back, the softer of his two towels prepared in offering, he forgets his upset entirely.

Dean is standing in the tub, rivulets of water dripping down all those firm, lovely contours Cas was enjoying just moments ago, and as Cas’s eyes helplessly make their descent, it’s impossible not to notice a very marked change from when Dean went into the bath.

“Oh,” he utters, gaze caught on it. The change is . . . significant, and if Cas thought it felt large in his hand, beneath the cloth, the reality is even more intimidating.

Dean clears his throat, and Cas is peripherally aware that he’s extended his arm, hand making some strange, grasping motion.

“Cas.”

“Yes?” Dean said he didn’t bed people who were uncomfortable, but Cas can’t imagine having _that_ put inside of your body could be anything else.

“Cas, _towel._ ”

Of course, his omegas probably lie to him about it. Dean _is_ very generous with his kisses, and his company is deeply pleasurable, and since being close with him just feels – well, _wonderful_ , Cas suspects they simply opt to spare him the guilt (and prevent him from changing his mind over bedding them in the first place).

After all, the discomfort is probably well worth what they get out of it. Cas would, as Charlie might say, ‘bet on it.’

Dean suddenly steps out of the tub, advancing, and Cas is so startled he nearly drops the towel.

“Um, I – I thought we’d wait until after dinner,” he stammers out, unprepared for this abrupt change in schedule, but Dean simply snatches the towel out of Cas’s hand and wraps it around his waist before turning back around.

“Yeah, well, I don’t _want_ to wait until after dinner to cover up,” Dean mutters. “We talked about this the night of the festival, Cas, you’re not supposed to look.”

“But I let you look at me,” he protests, and Dean glances over his shoulder, eyes narrowed.

“Did you? ‘Cause I kinda remember you making me _leave_ when you got out of the tub.”

Cas makes a face.

Of course he did. It’s fine for an alpha like Dean to wander around erect and ready to bed someone, but Cas’s dysfunction is pointless and embarrassing, besides, and he’d rather Dean not bear witness to it without anything else to distract him.

“That’s . . . different.”

“You know, I don’t think it is,” Dean muses. “In fact, I think I should get to stay today.”

Cas quickly averts his eyes.

He can’t be certain, but if having Dean wash the rest of him is anything like having Dean wash his hair, he’s going to have the same problems as last time.

“Never mind. I won’t look.”

“Kinda late, buddy.”

“But you didn’t tell me that was a condition.”

“What’s so different about me looking _after_ your bath, Cas? Something you wanna tell me?”

“No,” Cas says honestly. “I’d rather not.”

Dean goes silent.

Then he sighs, picking up one of the buckets and carrying it to the fire.

“How ‘bout I just turn around, today? Are you good with that?”

“Yes,” Cas agrees quickly, relieved Dean’s not going to press the issue – after all, Cas can see his point, and under other circumstances, he would agree it was fair – and hastens forward to help Dean prepare the water.

They sit in silence as they heat the first bucket, but once the second is settled on the grate, Dean takes a deep breath.

“Hey – what were you gonna tell me tonight, anyway?”

Cas blinks, turning to face him slightly, though Dean is staring into the low embers, intent.

“What?”

“You didn’t wanna say it in front of your sister, remember?”

Cas gulps.

“Ah. Yes. Uh. I’ll ask you after dinner.”

Dean’s head twitches to the side, at that, gaze sharp.

“Ask me?”

“Yes.”

“So . . . it’s a question.”

Cas hesitates.

“Yes, but – it’s more of a . . . proposal.”

Dean stiffens, brows lifting.

“A – a _proposal_?” he echoes, nearly a squeak, and Cas gives him an uneasy look.

“Yes. I was going to ask if you wanted to do something, but – it can wait.”

“Oh.” Dean relaxes a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “Like a . . . like a proposal that we do something, not – not a _proposal_ proposal.”

Cas squints at him, remembering Charlie’s inscrutable ‘ _tonight_ tonight’ in town yesterday.

“Does saying a word twice change its meaning?”

Dean clears his throat.

“Uh. Kinda.”

“Alright. What did that mean, then?”

Dean grimaces.

“’S’not important.”

Cas huffs in dissatisfaction, turning back toward the fire.

“Sometimes I wish you were more like your brother,” he mutters, and Dean goes silent.

“In what way?” he asks after a moment, voice strange, and when Cas glances back over, he looks -

Hurt.

Cas’s stomach drops.

“Not – not in most ways,” he says, somehow feeling hurt in return, anxious to make that look disappear. “But – you often say things and then refuse to explain them instead of just not saying them in the first place. It’s – frustrating.”

“Oh.”

“But I like you better than Sam,” he hastens to add, then feels guilty. “I – that is, I like Sam very much, and he has his unique virtues, but you – you are-”

Dean just looks at him, pained and expectant all at once.

“You’re my best friend,” Cas finally says, hunching. “I’m sorry. That was unkind. If you’d said you wished I was more like Anna, I – it would have made me very unhappy. I’m just – tired of not always understanding the things you say. But I didn’t mean – even when you’re difficult, Dean, I – I wouldn’t change you.”

Dean’s quiet for a moment, brow furrowed.

“Okay. I get that.” He hesitates. “I . . . wouldn’t change you, either.”

Cas shrugs slightly.

“I would,” he mumbles.

“You – why? How?”

“Just . . . if I’d been a woman, things would be easier.” Cas used to wish he hadn’t been an omega at all, seeing the clear social advantages of the alternatives, but if he’d been an alpha or a beta, they’d never have given him to Dean. “I could have taken my sister’s place, anyway, but – I’d be more . . . I wouldn’t have been whipped, and I wouldn’t have scars, and I wouldn't have been mocked on the Drive, and people wouldn’t ask me all these questions, and you – perhaps you’d-”

He stops, clenching his fists.

“I’m not a good thing to be,” he eventually settles on. “It causes more problems than it doesn’t. I think it’s normal to want to change it.”

Dean says nothing, and Cas is relieved when he sees the bubbles start to appear in the bucket.

“I think it’s ready,” he says, and without waiting for a response, removes it from the grate and carries it to the tub.

They’re quiet as they finish filling the bath, Dean softly instructing Cas to go ahead and get in, and Cas simply watches as he slowly pours in the final bucket, turning to prepare a fresh washcloth when he’s done.

There’s tension in the air between them, as there so often is, and Cas wishes they weren’t so prone to it. He supposes it’s his own fault, this time, but Dean is often uncommunicative and Cas struggles to understand the nuances of his intent, and in combination . . .

He suppresses a sigh.

Every time he thinks things are going to be easy, now, that he _does_ understand, that he’s happy with what he’s receiving, some other difficulty arises.

“Alright,” Dean murmurs. He studies Cas for a moment, then nods to himself, shifting to the foot of the tub.

Cas raises his brows, and Dean smiles slightly.

“Gonna start with your feet and work my way up,” he explains, lightly touching his finger to one of Cas’s knees. “Lift.”

Obediently, Cas raises his foot out of the water, and Dean wraps his hand around the back of Cas’s ankle, steadying it in the air while he gently brushes the cloth along the underside of Cas’s foot. Cas jerks a little, ticklish, and Dean’s lips quirk, though his movements don’t falter, the cloth gliding up over Cas’s instep and moving across the top of his foot before it slips down, tucking between each of his toes while he tries not to squirm in response.

Dean goes over it once more, not quite as thorough, then tightens his grip on Cas’s ankle and tugs it just below the water to rinse it.

“The thing is,” he starts, raising it again and gently guiding it back towards him. “I think you’re really beautiful, Cas.”

Which, Dean had said he enjoyed looking at him, but-

Dean leans down, brushing his lips along the arch of Cas’s foot, and Cas’s breath catches.

“I think . . .” Dean adds, tilting his head and lightly kissing Cas’s heel, the side of his foot, his instep, his toes, Cas too startled to even flinch. “I think every part of you is kinda gorgeous.”

Cas just stares dumbly as Dean pulls away again, opening his palm around Cas’s ankle as he begins to make his way up Cas’s leg with the cloth.

“Of course, we already established that I like looking at you,” Dean continues, cupping the back of Cas’s knee as he moves the cloth over his calf. “And that I think your scent is fucking _amazing_.”

Cas grits his teeth, bracing his foot against the edge as Dean drags the cloth over his knee, suddenly gentling when he reaches the inside of it, where Cas can feel his thumb brush lightly across the skin, absent of the cloth. It has something hot curling in his stomach, a maddening tease when he wants Dean’s grip firm again, wants that hand wrapped around his thigh the way it was his ankle, wants his fingers digging in.

It’s ridiculous; this is a _bath._ Dean’s meant to be washing him, not touching him, certainly not – grabbing at his limbs, but the lack of pressure frustrates him.

“Especially when you’re happy,” Dean murmurs, and – _there._ His grip tightens, the cloth an unfortunate barrier between them as Dean slides it roughly against the top of his thigh. “You smell perfect when you’re happy.”

Cas swallows, fighting not to shut his eyes, determined to watch Dean’s path over his body, watch his hands move across Cas’s bare skin with what must surely be some sort of – _expertise._

It’s a depressing thought, almost, though Cas supposes he shouldn’t complain, if he’s now reaping the benefits.

“Do you – do you bathe all your omegas?” Cas manages, struggling to form the words. He wonders if Dean is already planning on bedding him, if this is some sort of prelude, unfortunately foregone last time due to the urgency of his rut.

Dean stills, and Cas stifles a groan of frustration.

“Do I – what?”

“Your other omegas. Do you bathe them like this?” he snaps, trying not to twitch into the pressure against his leg, to demand Dean continue.

To his horror, Dean removes his hands altogether, propping his forearms against the edge of the tub, a frown twisting his features.

“Cas. I don’t – I don’t _have_ other omegas.”

Cas huffs.

“Perhaps not right now, but – in the past? Is this part of it?”

Dean makes a face.

“Part of wh- actually, never mind. Don’t answer that. The point is, this is my first time giving someone a bath. Happy?”

Strangely, yes, but-

“How are you so good at touching me?” he blurts out, and then blinks. “Washing me.”

Dean studies him for a moment.

“Because I’m trying really, really hard to make you feel good.” He smiles slightly. “Is it working?”

Cas nods, unabashed.

“Yes. Please continue putting forth the effort.” He hesitates. “I’m sorry if I fell short in doing the same.”

Dean snorts.

“Trust me, you didn’t.” Before Cas can answer, Dean returns the cloth to his leg, pressing it to his inner thigh and sliding it beneath the water.

Cas sucks in a breath.

“Don’t,” he whispers. “I – I’ll do that part.”

Dean pauses.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

The cloth slides a little lower, and Cas presses against the back of the tub, heart racing.

“Dean,” he says sternly.

“You did it to me,” Dean offers, tone suspiciously reasonable, and that’s very true, but-

“And then you told me I wasn’t allowed.”

Dean smiles, and then the cloth curves over his upper thigh, to the outside of it, sliding back out of the water toward his knee.

“Actually,” he says lightly. “You, uh. You smell really good right now.”

Cas takes a fortifying breath, relaxing a little.

“I do?”

“Yeah. The other night, when I washed your hair, too.”

Ah. If his scent _does_ do something particular when Dean washes parts of him, he suspects it’s tied to the problem he’s experiencing at present, the problem he really doesn’t want Dean putting his hand on.

Fortunately, Dean doesn’t seem to expect a response.

Dean pulls the cloth away, adding a little more soap, and then reaches for Cas’s other leg.

Cas lifts it, wondering if Dean will kiss this foot, too.

“The _point_ is,” he says, no less thorough thus far, “I like everything about you.”

Cas lets out a breath.

“I doubt that.”

“You shouldn’t.” Dean dunks it, and then, disappointingly, leaves only a single kiss, just below Cas’s toes. “You remember your blue nightgown?”

Cas settles his foot against the edge of the tub once Dean’s done with it, focused on the journey of the cloth up his leg.

“The lace one?”

“Yeah.” Dean clears his throat. “I, uh. I think about it, sometimes.”

At that, Cas gives him a startled look.

“Why?”

Dean doesn’t look at him, slipping the cloth across his calf.

“Remember what you said when you tried it on?”

Cas shakes his head, bewildered.

“You said you could see everything.” Dean pauses. “Your whole body.”

“Oh.” Cas swallows. “You could. The lace, um. It’s mostly sheer.”

“I know. That’s why I think about it.”

“I thought – I thought you thought it wasn’t practical.”

“Well, it’s not, Cas, but that’s not why you wanted it, and that’s not why I think about you in it.”

“What do you mean?” Cas asks, subtly nudging back against Dean’s hand when the cloth advances to his thigh again.

“I mean you’re really fucking beautiful, and I bet you look incredible in your nightgown.”

Cas just stares.

Part of him wants to ask if Dean brought it, if Dean wants to test that theory, but he’s not quite brave enough.

He doesn’t remember looking particularly nice in the nightgown, as beautiful as it was, and if Dean is being honest right now-

Cas would rather leave it to the kindness of his imagination than disappoint him.

“More importantly, though – I don’t think you’d look better in it if you were a woman,” Dean adds, working his way down Cas’s thigh, careful not to trespass too far. “I don’t think you’d look worse, either.”

Cas swallows, watching as Dean shifts to the side of the tub, soaping the cloth again and reaching for Cas’s left hand.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean – I think I don’t care what kind of body you’re in, Cas. What genders you are. I think you’d be beautiful all the ways.”

Dean pries Cas’s fingers off the edge of the tub – Cas hadn’t realized he was clutching it so tightly – and gently turns it, laying a kiss to the palm.

“I think I’d dream about you in your lacy blue nightgown, no matter what you were,” he murmurs against the skin, and then he draws away and starts washing it.

Part of Cas wonders if he’s really even hearing Dean, anymore, if this is some sort of waking dream, if all the novel-reading has at last taken its toll on his mental faculties.

“I think I’d wanna kiss you, too,” Dean adds, lacing the fingers of his free hand with Cas’s, holding that arm aloft as he moves the cloth along it, eyes finally meeting Cas’s.

“If I could change anything,” he says quietly. “It’d be the world you have to live in.”

Cas stares back.

“The world I have to live in?” he echoes, barely more than a whisper.

“Yeah. I, uh. I’d make your Dad kind, make him someone who appreciated a son that didn’t wanna hurt anybody, that wouldn’t have ever hurt you in return.” Dean lifts Cas’s arm a little higher, drawing the cloth down over the inside of his forearm, increasing the pressure slightly, a shock against the sensitive skin. “I’d make your town less shitty, make ‘em people who treated everybody right, who didn’t hurt innocent people just for being people.” He tugs the washcloth up, across the inside of Cas’s elbow, gentling as he traces the dip. “I’d make your sister go around the whole damn country, giving her talks and handing out her prints, but I’d make her start in Lawrence, make her go find everybody who jeered at you and tell them why they were wrong.” The cloth slips up, over Cas’s bicep, and Cas swears he hears Dean let out a tiny sigh as he fits it over the top, squeezing slightly. “I’d make it so every guy who wanted to wear a dress could wear a dress, and every girl who wanted to run a business by herself could, and nobody was ever allowed to take somebody’s kids away just ‘cause of what they were.”

Dean presses in, guiding Cas to bend his elbow, and then he rises to his knees, leaning forward and drawing close, so close Cas imagines he can feel Dean’s breath, warmly ghosting across his lips.

“I’d make it so you could just be, who and whatever you wanted,” Dean whispers. “Because so far – that person’s fucking incredible. He’s my best friend, and I – I hope he always is.”

And then Dean kisses him, the angle awkward, hand squeezing Cas’s, and it is a testament to just how much Cas has thought about and craved these kisses that even in his shock, he immediately responds, parting his lips and inviting Dean to press inside them, to let Cas taste him in return, to feel his lovely, perfect mouth, hungry for the remnants of all the mad, beautiful words it’s just now spoken.

Cas can’t believe he ever considered Dean _thoughtless._

“Keep washing me,” he whispers, reaching up to grip the back of Dean’s neck, to keep him close. He understands, now, why they have a special name for torture you enjoy, because it _was_ a form of torture, having to sit there and have Dean run the cloth over him – having to listen to him say such things, like Cas is something worth changing _worlds_ over – and not be able to touch him or kiss him. He’s painfully hard and too overwrought to be concerned over it, and now that Dean’s lips are on his, he’s decided that as much as he enjoyed the torture, he enjoys this sweet, endlessly satisfying form of mercy much, much more.

Dean starts to pull away, cloth bunching over Cas’s shoulder, and Cas shakes his head, tugging him back.

“Don’t stop kissing me.”

Dean huffs against his mouth.

“I can’t do both, Cas.”

“Try,” Cas mutters, licking at his lips, but Dean presses back against his hand, stubbornly resisting.

“ _Cas._ I’m gonna wash half of you twice and the other half not at all.”

Cas isn’t sure he cares.

“Hurry, then,” he concedes, reluctantly letting his hand fall away. He wonders if he should just have Dean bed him before dinner, to guarantee more kisses after this.

That _is_ the problem with kissing; once he begins, he never wants to stop.

Still. He’s not sure how the bedding will go, or what to expect from it afterward, and he wants to enjoy as much of his time with Dean as possible, just in case.

Dean sighs, though he’s smiling, something soft in his eyes, something that has Cas’s heart racing for a reason besides just the thought of more kisses.

“Okay, Cas,” he says quietly. “Whatever you want.”

He does hurry, then, though not by much, and once everything but Cas’s back and groin have been thoroughly soaped down, Dean moves onto his hair, where he seems to take his time again, much to Cas’s appreciation.

“Cas,” he says at one point, thumbing circles in the hair behind Cas’s temple. “You don’t have to tilt your head that far.”

Cas knows he doesn’t, but it feels nice to rest his head on the other side of the tub. Honestly, it just feels nice in general, Dean’s hands running through his hair, Dean a warm presence behind him and the air cool against the damp, sensitive skin of Cas’s neck as thin streams of soapy water slide down it.

A part of him wishes Dean would touch it, too.

“I know. I like it.”

Dean’s quiet for a moment.

And then he sighs.

“Me, too,” he mumbles, but then his fingers are pressing in with renewed vigor, massaging circles across Cas’s scalp, and Cas just relaxes into the tub, earlier urgency gone, contentedness spreading throughout his bones.

It’s been a bath far superior to the one he gave Dean, he knows, but he’s hoping the bedding will make up for it.

“Alright, buddy,” Dean eventually says, straightening his head. “You finish up and dry off. I brought the trunk with your stuff, so I’m gonna go get you some clean clothes. Sound good?”

Cas nods.

“I want the yellow ones,” he says, eyes still closed. “Did you bring my white shirt with the navy buttons?”

“Pretty sure. And the, uh, the matching trousers you always wear with it.”

Cas smiles.

“Those, too, then. Thank you.”

“Sure,” Dean says, and then a moment later, he feels Dean’s lips brush his cheek. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

Cas shakes his head, opening his eyes to find Dean walking to the right side of the bed, an unfamiliar trunk perched beside it and a change of clothes he assumes are meant for Dean laid on top.

He wishes, with all his heart, that that were true.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: shameless lingerie propaganda, Cas in drawers, Dean in drawers, small clarification on something said about relationships in the end notes, please let me know if I missed anything!

On the one hand, Dean continues to be pretty sure he’s going to hell.

On the _other_ hand, he can’t help but feel like the patience and restraint he’s exercised today practically warrant a _sainthood._

That girl from the other day — Susan or something — talked about kissing, about ‘friendly behavior’ with a gentleman’s tongue, apparently told Cas Dean might lay him out on the bed and make love to him, and dear _God,_ the woman knew what she was talking about, because it takes everything Dean has to smile and hand over the yellow drawers when it comes time. Cas’s chest is smooth and rosy above his towel and his toes are pruney and gorgeous where they rest against the wood floor of his bedroom and if the way he looks at Dean when he reaches out, blue eyes soft, a smile lurking at the corners, wasn’t bad enough—

The room fucking _reeks_ of arousal, Dean’s and his both, and unlike the other day, Dean can scent _slick_.

He can scent _Cas’s_ slick.

The hormones in the air are screaming for Dean to toss the drawers aside and push Cas down on the bed and seek out the source, to commit a whole variety of more-than-friendly _mis_ behaviors with his tongue, to give Cas as many kisses as he can stand and then do a hell of a lot more than just _make love_ to him, but—

But if anything, Cas is _oblivious,_ and even if he weren’t, even if normally, Dean would do exactly that to someone he took a sexy bath with . . .

That’s not what this is.

Whatever it is, whatever they’ve got, wherever it’s going—

Now (unfortunately) is not the time.

He perches on the bed while Cas dresses, trying not to think about Cas staring at his dick, or Cas’s hand on his dick, even if there was a washcloth between them and Cas _probably_ wasn’t trying to start anything, and when Cas pauses and sighs and Dean accidentally looks up and _sees_ him in the yellow drawers, fingers trailing over the sides, slow as he clearly relishes the feel of the soft, delicate cotton beneath them, Dean wonders if he’s going to have to spend the evening sitting on his hands.

“I missed these,” Cas murmurs, fingering the hem. “I didn’t realize how much.”

Dean swallows.

“Well, uh. I know you like your drawers, so . . . the other twenty pairs are in there.”

Cas turns, fixing him with a smile, although this one is a little sad, enough that the hot, itchy feeling beneath Dean’s skin fades a little.

“Thank you,” he says, and as sincere as it sounds—

“What’s wrong?”

Cas lifts his shoulders.

“Nothing.” He reaches for his shirt, slipping his right arm into the first sleeve. “I negotiated with Susan to bring us dinner at six, but we have a little time.”

Kind of troubled by the subject change, Dean shifts a little more toward him, since Cas doesn’t seem to mind the audience at this stage.

“Sounds good.”

“And I’ve reminded her to keep a close eye and make sure Anna doesn’t try and cause you digestive trouble.”

Dean snorts.

“Thanks, Cas. I appreciate it.”

Cas nods seriously.

“Honestly, that would ruin my plans for the evening as well.” He hesitates, fingers slowing as he does the buttons on his shirt.

Dean sort of wishes he’d been given the option to do them for him.

“I was . . . I was thinking, actually, that after dinner — well, I was going to wait to ask you until then, but I’m not sure how long it will take, or what typically happens after, especially since you can’t stay the night, but I would like the, um, the usual experience, whatever that happens to be, and in case we need to forgo dinner, I — I don’t want to miss our opportunity.”

“Uh.” Dean furrows his brow, struggling to follow. “Wait — what are you asking me?”

Cas takes a deep breath, finishing the top button and shaking out his pants.

“I thought you might bed me tonight,” he says, eyes carefully trained on his trousers as he steps into them, first one leg, then the other, Dean utterly uncomprehending as he looks on. “I’d like it if you did. Before we have to say goodbye.”

Cas ties them, taking a deep breath, and then meets Dean’s eyes once more.

“You — what?”

Cas hesitates, and then he abruptly crawls onto the bed, settling criss-cross at the foot, intent as he looks back at Dean.

“You intended to leave after this, didn’t you? For good.” He looks down again, suddenly unsure. “Though — I was told, actually, that it’s customary for best friends to visit each other. Even if they have to make up excuses. Of course — you’re a prince, and I’m — well. I understand if things are different for us. But I wanted to let you bed me, at least once, and in case this _is_ our last opportunity — it should be tonight.”

Dean just sort of stares back at him, speechless.

“So — you — are you saying—" He stops, taking a deep breath, struggling to form words. “But it’s not,” he finally blurts out, feeling almost — almost _hurt,_ somehow. “It’s not, Cas.”

“It’s not — what?”

“It’s not — _goodbye_. How could it be goodbye? I mean — maybe it should be, but — but I don’t want it to be. I don’t see how it _can_ be, not after—" Dean helplessly waves a hand, not sure how to say it. “Not after all of this.”

Cas blinks.

“After all of . . . what?”

Dean hesitates.

“I don’t — I didn’t know what to expect, when I came here, and then I thought you were gonna marry somebody, but you’re not, and you said you’d always wanna kiss me, and you seemed kind of sad, and you’re — you _are_ my best friend, and we’ve been — we’ve been—" Dean swallows, looking down. “I wouldn’t have done all that if I thought I couldn’t come back. That — that wouldn’t have been fair to you.”

And maybe it still isn’t, maybe Dean should have kept his hands to himself, maybe he _should_ be driving off in the morning for good, leaving Cas to sort his life out and meet somebody with less baggage, somebody who can court him properly and mate him and give him sexy baths every single night, but—

But Cas _asked_ to kiss him. He asked to watch Dean bathe, asked to have Dean help him do the same, and — and what else was Dean supposed to _do_ if not give him what he wanted?

How was he supposed to say _no_ to Cas? Especially after Cas made him promise to listen, how was he supposed to tell him he wasn’t allowed to ask for that? With the kid out of the picture, Cas didn’t owe anybody anything, and Dean—

Dean owes Cas _everything._

What’s more, he wants to give it.

And honestly? Leaving for good at this point doesn’t even feel fair to himself _._

“So — you’re coming back?” Cas says slowly, and when Dean looks up, there’s so much doubt and uncertainty in his eyes that it feels like a real, physical blow. He can’t believe Cas has spent the last two days thinking Dean was going to set off in the morning and forget all about him.

Anna was right.

Cas is way, _way_ too forgiving.

“Yeah. As soon as I can,” he adds, because it’s true. Even if he doesn’t know how he’s going to make it work, yet, he knows that — that he _has_ to. “And then I’ll come back again after that. I — I’ll come back as many times as you want me to.”

The uncertainty goes slack, softens into a hope so bright Dean can hardly stand to look at it.

How could he ever have come here thinking he’d leave again for _good_?

Cas takes a breath, eyes searching Dean’s.

“Do you mean that?”

“Dude, of course I do. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t. As long as you want me here, I — I’ll always come back.”

Cas quickly nods, fingers curling into the knees of his trousers.

“I do. I want you here, as — as often as you can be here.”

“Okay. I — it’s not gonna be as often as I want it to be, because there’s stuff I have to do, that I can’t get out of, but — I’ll try.”

“Of course. That — that’s much more than I expected. Thank you, Dean.”

Dean can’t help a frown, at that.

“Don’t thank me. I don’t — honestly, I don’t know why you’d want me here, but as long as you do, you deserve that much from me.”

Cas just shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just — I’m glad. I’m — _so_ glad, Dean.” Cas shakes his head again, and then he’s scrambling onto his knees, crawling toward Dean, and Dean instinctively opens his arms.

A moment later, Cas practically crashes into them.

“Thank you,” he whispers. His nose is brushing against the crook of Dean’s neck again, and Dean thinks he’s going to have to ask the council to include that in the New Eden curriculum, because someone should have told Cas that when an omega as mind-numbingly gorgeous and nice-smelling and generally perfect as Cas is starts clinging and scenting and baring for a simple-minded asshole alpha like Dean, it’s a great way to get pinned to the nearest surface with a set of teeth buried in your neck because, again, ‘simple-minded asshole.’

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he mutters, wrapping his arms around Cas’s shoulders, dizzy at the potency of his scent, at the practical _joy_ Dean is picking up in it.

Cas just takes a deep breath, right against his throat, and tucks in closer.

“Yes, I do,” he murmurs. “I’m holding you right now, and in a minute, I’m going to kiss you.”

Which is just — God. _God._

“No, you’re not,” Dean retorts, unable to resist nosing at his temple, behind his ear, eager to enjoy the full benefit of something he can’t help but feel, instinctively, is just for him.

Cas tenses.

“You won’t let me?”

“It’s not that.” Dean draws back, leaning against the pillows and taking Cas with him. Cas automatically moves astride him so he doesn’t lose his balance, and even though Dean’s pretty sure this is somehow all going to blow up in his face, eventually, he just shifts one arm, cupping Cas’s cheek and grinning up at him like a complete fucking dumbass. “It’s just — I’m gonna beat you to it.”

And then he tugs Cas down to meet him, and there’s a perfect mouth pressed to Dean’s, soft and startled for barely more than a second before it’s eagerly moving against his, Cas surging forward in his lap, seizing Dean’s shoulders and struggling to pull himself closer, and Dean would laugh if he had any breath left to give.

As it is, though, Cas seems determined to steal it all for himself, is ruthlessly licking at the seam of Dean’s lips, demanding entry, a fast learner in this as he is in all things, and since Dean might actually be content to just lie here and die like this if it means he never has to do anything else, he just sinks back a little further and opens.

Cas groans, tongue immediately thrusting inside, and Dean makes an encouraging sound in return, hand sliding up to Cas’s hair, tugging gently. There’s another small, choked sound, Cas’s tongue sliding urgently against Dean’s, and then suddenly he’s pulling back, breathing hard as he rises up on his knees and scoots away, and Dean’s confused and disheartened for all of two seconds before Cas seizes him by the hips and _drags_ him further down the bed, Dean’s head barely still propped on a pillow when all is said and done.

“Oh — uh—" Dean starts, but before he can finish, Cas is shifting, settling on top of him and stretching his legs out on either side of Dean’s with an _incredibly_ satisfied sigh.

And then he’s fisting his hands in Dean’s shirt and Dean’s being kissed again, Cas pressed all along his front, warm and reeking of pleasure right on top of him.

Dean lies frozen for a moment, then hastily wraps his arms around him and kisses back.

“Yes,” Cas breathes, hot against Dean’s lips. “This — this is good. Close. We should be close.”

“Yeah, yeah, definitely—" Dean agrees quickly, chasing after him, and Cas returns to kissing him for a few moments before he abruptly stills.

Dean takes a deep, shuddering breath, and forces himself to pull back, at least as much as that’s possible.

“What’s up, Cas?” he whispers, rubbing his back a little, going kind of cross-eyed as he searches Cas’s face. “Too much?”

Cas swallows, looking strangely guilty.

“No. Just — your other omegas probably weren’t as strong as me.”

Dean lifts his brows, incredulous.

“So? I like that you’re strong, Cas. We talked about this. I like you any way I can get you.”

Cas hesitates.

“But I’m being very demanding, right now.”

Dean huffs a laugh, moving his hand to touch Cas’s cheek, thumb stroking, and Cas presses into it, though he still looks unsure.

“I mean — to be fair, you kinda told me you were a shameless scoundrel. I knew what I was getting into.”

“Oh.” Cas nods slightly, nose brushing Dean’s. “That’s true. I did tell you.”

“See? Nothin’ to feel bad about it.”

Still, Cas hovers, a question in his gaze.

“I . . . are you going to bed me, still?”

This time, Dean’s the one to freeze.

“Uh. No. I wasn’t — I wasn’t planning on it. We haven’t actually, uh. You know, talked about it. Or anything, actually. ‘Cause all the kissing is — well, it’s really nice, and it — it’s kinda distracting.”

“It is,” Cas agrees seriously. “Very much. It’s not that I didn’t already often think of the times I kissed you, but today — today, it was all I could think about while I was at work.”

Dean flushes, trying not to look too pleased.

“Yeah? Well — it was all I could think about while I was waiting at Bobby’s.”

Cas smiles slightly.

“Is it normal for an alpha to like kissing so much?”

Dean blinks.

“I mean . . . it’s . . . honestly, I think it’s normal for anybody to like kissing any amount, even if they don’t like it at all.”

Cas tilts his head slightly, squinting, and Dean shakes his head, unable to help a smile.

“Anyway, normal doesn’t really matter to me,” he adds, sweeping his thumb toward Cas’s jaw. “I like kissing you, and as long as you like kissing me, I gotta say, man — I don’t really care about anything else.”

Cas just looks at him for a moment.

“What do we have to talk about before you can bed me?” He breathes in, shifting a little on top of Dean, and as nice as it’s been, Dean knows his arms can’t be comfortable, bent like that and squished between them. “Even if you’re coming back, I don’t want to be unfair to you tonight.”

Dean’s trying to think of ways to get Cas more comfortable without losing any of the closeness he’s clearly after — not that Dean’s really eager to give it up, himself — and it takes a moment for the words to sink in.

“Unfair?” he echoes, and then he pushes at Cas a little, nudging him off and onto his back. Cas looks briefly dismayed, but then Dean rolls, tucking against Cas’s side, careful to keep his weight off of him as he rests his elbows on either side of Cas’s head.

Cas blinks.

“You’re too far over,” he says, tugging at the side of Dean’s shirt. “We’re barely touching.”

“Yeah, we are,” Dean protests, wiggling a little for emphasis. “My whole front’s practically touching you.”

Cas scowls, tugging again.

“Not where I want it. Lie on top of me, Dean.”

“Dude, I don’t wanna crush you.”

There’s a flicker of amusement.

“I don’t think you could.”

Dean narrows his eyes.

And then, just to make a point, he shifts himself, barely holding back as he lands right on top of Cas.

Cas tenses with a grunt.

“See?” Dean says, pointed, but Cas rolls his eyes.

“No. While I’m not sure I’d like it if you _bounced_ on me, this feels very nice.” He wriggles a little, reaching up to grip Dean’s hips for support, and Dean about swallows his tongue when he feels fingers just barely digging into his asscheeks.

Cas pauses.

“Is this your—"

“Yes,” Dean says, a little frantic. “So you can let go.”

“Oh.” Cas looks surprised.

And then his fingers dig in a little harder, and Dean instinctively jerks forward, away from the touch.

Cas sucks in a breath. His brow dips, a bewildered look crossing his face, and he tentatively shifts his hips.

Of course, Dean rolls right back off of him, away from grasping hands and wiggling pelvises and _jesus christ,_ Cas is gonna be the death of him.

“Okay, that’s enough,” he huffs, heart pounding. “Maybe we should talk.”

Cas is silent for a moment, though Dean can _hear_ him breathing, the kind of slow, deep breaths you breathe when something kind of intense is happening, and forget hell, Dean _definitely_ deserves that sainthood.

“Sorry,” he finally says. “I won’t touch it again. Just — it was — you’re very firm, Dean. _Everywhere_ ,” he adds, sounding puzzled. “It felt . . . nice.”

Dean closes his eyes, drawing his knees up to rest his head against them.

“Right. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Cas hesitates. “But I won’t touch you if it makes you uncomfortable. Still, you can, um. You can lie on me and kiss me again. And bed me. But dinner is coming soon, so it might be better to wait—"

“Cas.”

Cas quiets, and Dean breathes in slowly.

“What’s this about — being unfair to me?”

“Ah.” He hears Cas shift, thinks he may have sat up. “Well . . . you came to see me, and you’ve done all these things for me, and you’re even going to come _back,_ and . . . I don’t want to just take from you, Dean.”

Dean’s glad Cas can’t see his face, because all his good feelings from the sexy baths and the kissing and the snuggling and the flirting that Cas is surprisingly good at (even though Dean isn’t sure he knows he’s doing it), sort of die an agonized death and combust into ashes.

“So . . . you don’t actually wanna . . .”

And that’s fine, obviously, because Dean wasn’t planning on it tonight, hadn’t given it a _lot_ of thought, wasn’t even sure he ever should, the way things stood, because coming to visit Cas and spending any of that time between the sheets smacks a little too much of ‘calling on your mistress’ for him to feel really great about it, but hearing Cas talk like he’d just be putting up with it for Dean’s benefit is kind of . . .

“I do,” Cas protests, and Dean perks up a little, because _that_ makes sense, if you consider the slicking and the ass-grabbing and the irresistible thing Cas’s scent does when the kisses get _really_ intense, but then: “I think the kissing and the closeness will make it well worth it for me, Dean.”

Dean’s honestly surprised his chest doesn’t just collapse.

“Oh. Uh. Well. I’m — I’m not really interested in bedding you,” he manages, and it’s true, with the qualifier of _since you don’t wanna bed me,_ “So, uh. Don’t worry about it.”

Cas is quiet for a moment.

“Ah. That’s . . . understandable,” he eventually says, utterly unreadable, at least to Dean’s ears. “Is there something else I can do for you, that you do want?”

Dean takes a deep breath, swallowing his disappointment.

“No, and even if there was, Cas — you could be making me haul baths from the river twice a day and play target practice for Lucy and you still couldn’t be unfair to me.”

“Neither thing really benefits me—" Cas starts, and Dean huffs, lifting his head.

“That’s not the point.”

Cas looks unimpressed.

“What is the point, then?”

“The point is that — coming to see you, things I supposedly do for you — they’re not just for you. I get just as much, if not more, out of that as you do. Which is how it’s _supposed_ to be. Between best friends or — or whatever else. We work, we _fit_ , because we both just — we like being together. We like the shit we do together. If I’m here with you, if I’m doing something for you, it’s because it’s what I want. It’s not — _unfair_ to me.”

“Okay.” Cas looks at the duvet, clearly processing. “You’d . . . enjoy Lucy using you for target practice?”

Dean blinks.

“I — okay, no, but I’m just saying, I get so much out of the other stuff, it would be worth it if it made you happy.”

Cas gives him a sharp look.

“Alright. But — _I’m_ saying that I get so much out of everything else, it would be worth it for you to bed me, if it made _you_ happy.”

Either Dean is shit at explaining things (likely) or Cas is a pro at Missing the Point (also possible), but no matter how you slice it, Dean’s pretty sure it’s time to be done talking about this.

Besides; as much as something in Dean shrivels a little every time Cas talks about sex with him like it would be a chore performed solely for Dean’s benefit, it doesn’t matter. Cas wants Dean to come see him again, wants to hang out and walk around town, wants to kiss him and take sexy baths together, and that’s — that’s fucking amazing. Dean has no idea how he’s going to get his ass back here even a fraction of the time that he wants, but at least once he figures it out, he’s _welcome._

He’s _wanted,_ in the most important ways.

And if — if he plays his cards right, if he can convince Cas that he’s worth more than just a visit to look forward to, that there are at least some things he can offer him, back at the castle, even if it’s not the big things — and if Charlie’s right, if the bite and the wedding really turn out to be worthless, next to all the other stuff—

Well, then sex must be so far down the list, it’s not even worth thinking about.

“It won’t,” he vows, catching Cas’s eye, trying to project his sincerity. “Not even a little bit.”

If anything, Cas looks resigned.

“Very well.” He hesitates, lips tugging down at the corners. “But when you’re with your others, could you not—" Cas stops, then, making a face. “Never mind. That’s unfair to them.”

Dean has no idea what he was about to ask, but even if Cas isn’t interested, even if Dean’s not sure it would be okay to do even if he was, he’s sure as hell not looking anywhere _else,_ at this point.

“Cas, for the last time, I don’t _have_ oth—"

Cas rolls his eyes.

“Yes, Dean, I’m aware you don’t _now,_ but you have in the past, and you obviously will in the future. Anyway, it’s not important,” he mutters, looking frustrated. “Is there really nothing I can do for you?”

“I — no, but — Cas, I’m not — if I’m visiting you, I’m not going to do anything with anyone else.”

Cas just looks at him.

“I’m very happy that you’re going to visit me, Dean. More than I can say. And I’m sorry you’re not interested in bedding me. But — be realistic. At the very least there’s a — a noblewoman, or—" Cas pauses, looking down. “Regardless of your own feelings, your council may arrange something with Edgewater.”

Which — _fine,_ Cas has a point, there, one Dean’s been very, very carefully not thinking about, but even if he has no choice but to suck it up and spend a cycle with someone else, even if that someone turns out to be a wife-

Well, Bela can keep doing whatever the fuck it is she’s doing all over Winchester, which is clearly not collecting _art,_ but Dean’s not sharing a bed with her any more than he absolutely has to.

“Okay, but — aside from that, I’d never—"

“As I said,” Cas interrupts. “It’s not important. The important thing is — you’re going to visit me. And if there _is_ something I can do for you, you’re going to tell me.”

Dean just looks back, at a loss. Cas seems more determined than anything, and fine, it kind of makes sense that if Cas isn’t interested, he doesn’t really care that much whether Dean does stuff with other people, but — but _Dean_ cares, and since Cas seems preoccupied with making sure Dean gets something out of all this, then he should understand that Dean doesn’t want to do sexy things with anyone else for the same reason he’s getting plenty out of this already.

“And I’ll — do that, I guess, but listen, Cas, I — I just wanna make sure you know that — that I—"

He stops, Cas waiting expectantly beside him, and he means to continue, means to fumble out the words in spectacularly inadequate, hamfisted Winchester fashion, but before he can, he realizes something — something very, very important.

Cas . . . Cas is kissing him, and holding him, and taking baths with him, and normally Dean would just assume some things about what that meant, but then again — Cas keeps saying Dean’s his best friend, and he seems primarily concerned with making sure Dean comes _back,_ an d honestly , when Dean got here in the first place, he was — well, he was _sad._

Whatever Dean _normally_ might assume, however he might extrapolate from all of it if Cas were someone else — he can’t really do that with Cas, can he?

And since Cas unapologetically announced to a room full of people that he was going to watch Dean take a bath — since Cas is _always_ blunt, is the one who kissed Dean in the first place, the night before he left, seems to have no problems saying what he feels or asking for what he wants, then . . .

Maybe Dean’s jumping the gun, here.

“Dean?”

Dean swallows.

“I . . . just . . . I’ll come back. No matter what. ‘Cause you’re my best friend, and I — I couldn’t stay away if I tried,” he finally says. That should be safe, right? It’s not that much more than Cas has said, but it’s not totally something you’d say to someone who was _just_ your best friend, so . . . Cas can kind of make of it what he will.

Cas squints.

“Yes, you could. You did,” Cas adds, a little sour. “You only came to confirm my good health.”

“I — that was an excuse!”

“Alright, but before you thought of it, you let Sam and Charlie come without you. So I don’t believe you.”

“Okay, _fine,_ but that was before I knew you _wanted_ me to come!”

Cas grimaces.

“I expressed, _repeatedly,_ how much I enjoyed your company, Dean. That should never have been a question.”

“Yeah, except I thought you ran away from me! I was trying to respect your decision!”

Cas’s lips press together.

“Well, I didn’t.”

“Yeah, I got that, buddy. Which is why I’m coming back.” Dean scrubs a hand down his face, baffled. “Why the hell are we _fighting_?”

Cas’s frown deepens.

“We aren’t fighting.”

“We’re totally fighting.”

“We’re ‘totally’ not, Dean.”

“What else do you call it?”

Cas hesitates.

“Clarification.”

Dean snorts.

“Yeah, no, buddy, it’s a fight. You’re pissed at me and I feel guilty and we’re going in circles over fucking semantics.”

Cas lets out an incredibly loud sigh.

“I’m not ‘pissed’ at you,” he says, then mutters, “Or I wasn’t.”

“ _Dude_ —"

“I just want to be sure I know what to expect,” he snaps, hunching in slightly. “And since you seem to be promising much of what I want, I’d like to do the same for you. That’s all.”

Dean deflates a little.

“Oh.”

They’re quiet for a moment, and then Cas clears his throat.

“You’re right. I think I’m angry.”

“No shit, Cas.” The response is instinctive, prompting a huff, and Dean sighs. “Sorry. Any particular reason you’re angry?”

Cas lifts his shoulders.

“You’re very — accommodating, Dean. Which I appreciate. But you _are_ giving me what I want, except I don’t feel like I’m doing anything for it, and it makes me feel —" he cuts off, shaking his head.

“Makes you feel what?” Dean asks, when he fails to continue, and Cas shrugs again, looking lost.

“Just . . . helpless. And frustrated. I — I’m tired of either receiving or being denied without having any control over it.”

Which — Dean gets that, but-

“I told you, Cas. You — you’re already doing everything. I’m already getting everything.”

“Yes, but I don’t know what that _means._ You can say that’s how it is, but I don’t understand it.”

Dean hesitates.

“Okay. Okay, I think — we kept kissing and stuff instead of talking, but — definitely, before I leave tomorrow, there’s, uh, there’s some things we should figure out.”

Cas gives him a wary look.

“What things?”

“About — like you said, I guess. About — wants. And expectations.”

Honestly, there’s a reason they haven’t had it yet. Dean’s not really sure which scares him more, what Cas might want or what he might _not._

“Expectations,” Cas repeats, vaguely unhappy. “I don’t expect anything from you.” He suddenly looks unsure. “What do you expect from me?”

“I — nothing, but — but if there’s something we should expect, or just — that we _can_ expect, we should talk about it. You deserve to know. I — I’d like to know, too.”

“Alright.” Cas nods slowly. “That — that would be nice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it — these things don’t really work, if you don’t know. I mean, they can, but — it makes it a lot harder.”

“Oh. I don’t want things to be harder.”

Dean can’t help a smile at that.

“Well, no, Cas. Me, either.”

Cas smiles back, though there’s still way much too uncertainty in his eyes for Dean’s liking.

“How do we talk about that, then?”

“Uh.” Dean felt pretty lousy, having Cas tell him he wished Dean were more like Sam, but right about now, he kind of agrees. “I guess — I should probably—"

There’s a sharp knock on the door, the handle rattling immediately after, followed by what sounds like a disappointed noise.

“Castiel? I sure hope I’m not interrupting anything inter-anything important, but I brought your dinner!”

Cas quickly slips off the bed, striding toward the door and unlocking it.

“It’s an important conversation, but we hadn’t started it yet,” he assures her once it’s open. “Thank you very much, Susan.”

Susan thrusts the tray at him, eagerly peering over his shoulder.

“Hello, your highness!” she calls excitedly.

“Uh. Hi — Susan.”

She beams.

“I heard he made you strip naked and locked you in his room until you ravished him! Did you have a nice time?”

Dean’s jaw drops.

“Uh. I — I had a nice time, but there wasn’t really—" He winces, remembering Cas’s hand sliding, with excruciating slowness, up and down his cock. “He didn’t. Do that.”

“Well, I did make him strip,” Cas amends. “And technically, I locked the door, though I certainly wouldn’t have barred his exit.” Cas pauses. “He declined to ravish me, however. Dean’s not interested in bedding me.”

Susan screws up her face.

“Well, _that_ can’t be ri—"

“It’s certainly his decision,” Cas interrupts smoothly, then softens. “But I appreciate your bringing our meal up.”

“Absolutely, but listen, I think I have another tiny question to ask—"

“Another time,” Cas insists, then gives her a significant look. “Dean is leaving after tonight.”

She hesitates.

“But . . .”

“Susan,” Cas says quietly, and she makes a face.

“Fine. But I don’t understand the point of getting naked if he wasn’t going to _do_ anything about it,” she adds darkly, then sniffs. “Enjoy dinner, I guess. And your _important_ _conversation_.”

Then she turns on her heel and marches off.

Cas carefully nudges the door shut behind her, and then starts moving back to the bed.

“I apologize. Susan has a lot of ideas about things.”

Dean makes a face.

“Right, but you could have explained. I mean, it’s not any of her business, but now she thinks _I’m_ the one who — you know.”

Cas squints.

“I don’t know, and as far as she needed to know, I did explain.” Cas slides the tray onto the bed. “Are we going to talk now?”

Dean hesitates.

And then he shakes his head, because it’s his last night here, and he doesn’t know when he’s going to be back, and since they should have plenty of time to talk _after_ dinner-

“Nah. I don’t know what to say yet. And I just wanna — eat with you. Like we used to.”

Cas’s expression softens, and then he crawls onto bed, settling beside Dean.

“Yes. I’d like that. I miss having dinner with you.” He tugs the tray toward them, looking a little wistful. “I was happy, when you started staying.”

Which, Dean’s not really sure _why_ that made Cas happy, given how shitty Dean had been up to that point _,_ but-

“Me, too. Really happy.” Happier than Dean can even say.

There were a lot of reasons he didn’t try harder to let Cas go, but in the end, most of them were selfish.

Cas smiles.

“Well. When you visit, we can eat together.” He hands Dean a plate, giving him a sidelong glance. “Mr. Dryer told me — he said his best friend has been visiting him for twenty years. Ever since he had to move away.”

Dean tries not to make a face. Obviously, he wants to be sharing dinner with Cas in twenty years, but he doesn’t really want either one of them to have to spend all day in a carriage to make it happen.

He wants it to be _every_ dinner, and he wants to hang out and then fall asleep together afterward, because even if there aren’t any bites and the council will exile him before they let him hand his crown to Cas — he’s hoping, once the heirs are out of the way and Dean can at least make some kind of commitment to him, it’ll be enough.

Still. Dean doesn’t kid himself Cas would say ‘yes’ to that any time soon, not without a lot more effort on Dean’s part.

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly, picking up his fork. “I’d like that, Cas. And Mr. Dryer’s right. You, uh. You don’t let a best friend go easy.”

Cas pauses, hand hovering over the cutlery.

“That’s good,” he says after a moment. “That seems sensible. A lot of the women here complain about that. That they didn’t have the opportunity to make friends, in their previous situations. They were very lonely.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

“It does.” Cas smiles. “I know no one else thinks so, but — I feel lucky. I was almost never lonely, once I went to Lawrence.”

He looks pleased, and a little guilty, like he somehow made it out with something he shouldn’t have, and Dean aches.

After everything he’s been through, he’s sitting there calling himself _lucky._

Dean swallows a sudden lump in his throat.

“Same,” he manages, and Cas gives him a curious look. “I mean — me, either. After you came to Lawrence — I stopped being lonely.”

“What about now?” Cas asks, somehow troubled, and Dean shakes his head.

“Got lonely again. ‘Cause you left.” He clears his throat. “That’s why you need to understand — I do get things from you, Cas. I get a hell of a lot from you. I always have.”

Cas looks at him, searching.

“You have other people, though.”

“And you have your sister, and some friends here,” Dean points out, then asks, genuinely uncertain: “Is that — do you feel like it counts the same?”

Cas immediately frowns.

“No. Not at all.”

Dean shrugs, looking down at his plate.

“Okay, well — I’m the same. And I — I’m always gonna be lonely without you.” Cas is dead silent for a moment, and Dean, not quite brave enough to look at him, clears his throat. “Alright. We were gonna talk after, right? Let’s eat.”

And with that, Dean firmly picks up his spoon and tries to smother his shame with mashed potatoes.

Cas wishes someone had explained ‘best friends’ to him sooner.

Honestly, as far as he can tell, at least from what Dean and Mr. Dryer have said on the topic, best friendship sounds like a potentially _lifelong_ commitment, one which entails a significant amount of effort toward togetherness.

Cas isn’t sure it’s not just a single step down from marriage, actually;

Then again, Dean _did_ tell him he was his best friend in the same letter that he suggested Cas go live a happy life without him, but Cas has decided to attribute that to his own failure to communicate his feelings on the matter.

(In light of that, and the frustrating business with the chrysanthemums, Cas wonders if he should ask Anna to look for a book on basic Winchesterian customs and society. He hadn’t thought he’d need it, given his confinement at the castle and exile at the Gardens hanging over his head, but alas.)

“Okay,” Dean starts, once they’ve stacked their plates and moved the tray to the table, Dean sitting criss-cross on the bed and facing him with serious eyes.

Cas mimics him, a little concerned about where the conversation might go, but mostly just — reassured, because of how the other one went.

Dean’s coming back. Unless Cas somehow manages to say the wrong thing, to make Dean not _want_ to come back or see him, Dean has promised, and even if he’s not interested in bedding Cas, he said he was lonely without him. That he always would be.

Being missed is one thing, a wonderful thing, but a guarantee of nothing. Something absent can be replaced, after all.

But for Dean to experience a state of actual loneliness for lack of him, a loneliness tied to Cas, specifically, regardless of anything else . . .

Cas can’t help it. He doesn’t want Dean to suffer, but he does want to be essential, in some way, and if that is the cost, if Dean is willing to bear it, if he will endure the inconvenience of travel so Cas can alleviate it—

It feels like a little like a miracle.

“Okay,” Cas echoes. “How do we have the talk?”

Dean’s lips twitch.

“Wait, which talk are we having?” he asks, clearly intending it to be a joke of some kind, and Cas frowns.

“The one about expectations.”

Dean sobers a little.

“Yeah. So . . . I guess, first of all — what, uh. What do you want from this?”

“What do you mean?”

Dean lifts his shoulders.

“I mean — me and you. Our — uh. Relationship, I guess,” he adds, making a face for some reason. “What’s your ideal?”

Cas hesitates.

“My ideal,” he repeats slowly, not sure how to answer, and Dean’s expression gentles, eyes searching.

“Yeah. If you could have everything exactly the way you wanted, what — what would that look like?”

It’s a dangerous question.

Obviously, his ideal would be to be _with_ Dean, to be back at the castle, Dean calling on him nearly every evening, as he did before. If that involved bites or marriage or other binding agreements which would at least make it some what inconvenient for Dean to leave him, that would be better, but it seems like a very petty thing to say, and what’s more, Dean’s looking at him with such a soft, open expression, Cas suspects he’s actually going to try and _do_ whatever Cas is about to describe, so long as it’s within reason.

“I’d like to see you,” Cas says slowly, watching him carefully. “As many times as you’d like to see me.”

Dean hesitates.

“Okay. And . . . that’s all?”

_No._

“Yes?”

“You just want to see me.”

“Yes,” Cas says, a little more confident.

“So . . . kissing’s off the table.”

“No,” Cas says quickly. “I want — if you want to, then yes. I want that.”

“Wait. Would you be doing it just because _I_ want to?” Dean asks, looking troubled, and Cas frowns at him.

Has he somehow forgotten the last two days?

“I’m only doing it if you _also_ want to, Dean. But I want to. Very much.”

“Okay. I thought so, but — just wanted to make sure. And . . . what else do you want?”

Cas looks back at him, struggling to conceal his frustration. Dean holds _all_ of the cards here; as far as Cas is aware, absolutely nothing Cas can offer him is something he can’t more conveniently access in Lawrence, excepting his particular company. Dean isn’t even interested in _bedding_ him. Which means that, as Cas suspects is often the case, Dean’s inherent kindness and sentimentality is leaving him open to manipulation.

As the person manipulating him — Cas has enough of a conscience not to want to make Dean do anything he doesn’t even want.

He wishes Dean would just _tell_ him where the line of benefit ended for himself.

“I don’t know.”

Dean narrows his eyes, suspicious.

“Cas.”

Cas looks down.

“What about you? What do you want?”

Dean hesitates.

“It’s — it’s more about — what’s possible, Cas. What I can have.”

“Then the same must be true for me.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means — there are other considerations than — than want.”

Dean quiets, contemplative, and perhaps a little frustrated, himself.

“Okay. What, uh. What do you _expect,_ then?”

Cas shakes his head.

“I have no expectations. But I’d like for you to — to come see me, and to kiss me, and — to stop, when it’s no longer worth it for you,” he adds, because he knows he must. “That’s all. I’m not — I don’t want to take anything from you, Dean, or cause you grief.”

“You won’t,” Dean assures him. “And — and it’ll always be worth it to me, Cas. Like I said, you’re my best friend. I’ll keep coming until _you_ don’t want me to.”

Obviously, Dean will no doubt become too frail and infirm to make the trip long before Cas stops _wanting_ him to, but that’s fine. That’s many decades in the future, assuming they’re like Mr. Dryer and his friend — assuming Dean will even still be thinking of him in ten years, let alone twenty.

Cas will take it, for however long it lasts.

“Alright. Then — that’s acceptable.”

“Acceptable,” Dean echoes, suddenly looking dismayed. “What’s wrong with it?”

Cas squints.

“Nothing. I just said it was—"

“Acceptable, which kind of implies _barely._ ”

“I — acceptable means _acceptable._ I am happy to accept that.”

“Right, if you say so.”

Cas scowls.

“What? Do you want me to ask for more?”

Dean lifts his brows.

“Yeah, if you want more.”

“Fine.” Cas hesitates. “When you _are_ here, I want you to stay for my baths. And, um. Wash my hair. And me, some of the times. Unless that’s too much—"

“It’s not,” Dean says quickly, a little light back in his face. “Definitely not. I want that, too.”

“Alright. And . . . I’d like to be present for your baths, sometimes, as well.” Part of Cas is tempted to ask to be allowed to touch Dean’s penis, if only because he hates the sense of something being _withheld_ from him, but Dean had seemed firm on the topic and Cas doesn’t necessarily gain anything concrete from that, so it’s hardly worth pushing for.

“Okay. That, uh. That all seems fair.”

“Yes,” Cas agrees quickly, relieved he thinks so. “Yes, that — yes.”

Dean smiles, cheeks a little red, now, and suddenly reaches for Cas’s hand.

“Awesome.”

Cas looks at it.

“And you? What do you want?” he adds, looking back up, searching. “I know you said — but if you ever change your mind, you _can_ bed me. Whenever you want, as many times as you want.”

For some reason, Dean’s face falls.

He swallows.

“That — that’s okay,” he says after a moment, a little pained. “But thank you for . . . offering, I guess.”

“Of course.” As intimidating as Dean’s erect penis was, it’s difficult for Cas not to be disappointed.

And if he’s being honest, the sense of helplessness to provide something of merit for Dean is only a part of that disappointment. Alphas experience a disproportionate amount of lust, yes, but that lust is triggered by a variety of things, and while the rest of Winchester may not place the same restrictions on satisfying it outside of mating, they seem to agree that it can always be provoked, given the right temptation.

And in the novels, at least — the omega _is_ that temptation. The heroes always desire the heroine, in particular, and though the one other time Cas had been the object of someone’s lust, it brought him the worst trouble he’s ever encountered in his life—

That was different.

Now, he wishes he _could_ provoke Dean’s desire; honestly, he thought he _would._ Dean watched him and touched his body and was erect and smelling the way he did the night of the festival, and he said such impossible, wonderful things about Cas being _beautiful,_ about the irrelevance of his genders, about at least some kind of want, and Cas thought — based on everything he’s read, he assumed that meant he would be acceptable.

That he isn’t makes him feel somehow . . . inadequate.

But the novels are frustratingly vague about the bedding, and they’re written for women and omegas, anyway, which means everything’s going to be skewed toward _their_ preference and enjoyment — toward an excess of kissing and affection. They tell him nothing of alphas _,_ and even if Cas’s body _is_ designed to submit to an alpha’s attentions, it’s still not the sort of body Dean is used to paying his attentions _to._

He supposes he should just be grateful that kissing is a different story. Aside from the damnable stubble that wants to accumulate around it, Cas’s mouth is still a mouth, like any other human’s, and it means Dean is still able to enjoy kissing it.

“Cas?” Dean asks softly, concern in his face, and Cas shakes himself. “You okay?”

“Yes. Just — what _do_ you want, then? Or — expect?” he finally asks, and Dean looks at him for a moment, and then shrugs.

“I just . . . wanna be here. And have you want me here.”

Cas squints.

“I thought you said you wanted to kiss me.”

Dean huffs.

“I do, but—"

“And you want to touch me in the bath.”

“Uh, you don’t have to say it like _that_ —"

“And if there’s anything else you want from your visits, I’d like to give it. But I can’t if you don’t _tell_ me.”

Dean grimaces, ducking his chin, hands folding in his lap.

“Look, Cas — that’s it. I want to see you. I want to — I don’t know, walk through town with you and have picnics by the river and go riding and hold your hand and kiss you and just — be with you, however you wanna be with me.”

“Oh.” Cas blinks, swallowing. Objectively speaking, that’s a far superior request to bedding. Cas didn’t even know some of those things were _options._ “Well, that — that seems more than fair, Dean.”

Dean sighs tiredly.

“Good.”

“But — you should know, Dean, that — you can have whatever you want from me.”

Cas might not be Dean’s, any longer, not according to Winchester or its king or its council, and never according to Dean-

But he is.

He always will be.

Still, Dean just shakes his head.

“You shouldn’t say that, Cas.”

“It’s true.”

“It’s not,” Dean argues, though there’s no bite. “And it shouldn’t be.”

Cas frowns.

“Well, it is, but if it’s going to upset you, we don’t have to discuss it.”

Dean sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, alright. Another time.” He pulls his hand away, and Cas relaxes when he sees the beginnings of a smile. “I, uh. I think we covered it all. How ‘bout you?”

Cas nods solemnly.

“I think so.”

“And — you’re good with that? You’re happy with it?”

“Very,” Cas responds, not needing to think about it. “I thought you might leave for good, earlier. I’m — extremely happy, Dean.”

Dean exhales.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry, I just — I thought you’d know.”

“I didn’t. But it doesn’t matter.” Cas smiles back. “Are _you_ happy?”

“Yeah. Definitely. For a while there, back home, I — I thought I wouldn’t even see you once, let alone . . . any of this. So — yeah. Yeah, I’m really happy, Cas.”

“Good.”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“Anything else you wanna talk about? Or that you wanna know?”

Cas considers this, fairly certain they have, indeed, covered it all when—

“Actually,” he starts, pleased he remembered. He’d been too distracted by the kisses and the offensive curfew to ask at the time. “What was ‘the time with the drawers?’ That Alex threatened you with last night?”

Dean’s expression goes slack.

“Uh. Well, like I said, it wasn’t much of a threat. I don’t care.”

Cas nods slowly.

“So you said,” he agrees, waiting, and after a moment, Dean huffs, though he looks amused.

“I . . . it really wasn’t a big deal. Someone I was — that I was with, had me try on her drawers. They were pink, and satiny. I, uh. I kinda liked it.” He clears his throat, then adds, “Which I accidentally told a bunch of friends during a drinking game, which is why what feels like half the goddamn kingdom knows about it, now.”

“Someone you were with,” Cas repeats, feeling out the awkwardness of the phrasing. “Someone you kissed?”

Dean hesitates, the nods.

Cas pauses.

“Someone you . . . bedded,” he clarifies, given the described circumstances, and Dean swallows.

“That’s — not really important to the story.”

Cas nods.

“Someone you bedded,” he decides, trying not to feel sour. “And why did Alex think that would embarrass you?”

Dean shrugs.

“’Cause it’s not something men do — even just once. A lot of men would refuse on principle, since they think it’d make ‘em — uh. Less of a man, I guess.”

“Oh.” _Cas_ wears drawers, as he recalls Dean pointing out, but honestly, as an omega, he _is_ less of man.

“But that’s not true,” Dean adds quickly. “Like — it’s just clothes, right? It, uh. It shouldn’t matter. I — I mean, if you think about it, being a man shouldn’t matter, either. It just — it just does, to a lot of people, and — it can be hard, if those people are shitty to you over it.”

Cas nods. Even if he weren’t familiar with people being ‘shitty’ to him over such things, a few nights in the parlor while Anna’s talking would have acquainted him well enough.

“Should I not tell people I wear drawers?’

“Uh — well, you shouldn’t be telling _strangers_ about your underwear, no matter what kind you wear, but — if you’re close with somebody, then — then I think they should be the kind of person who it doesn’t matter to.” Dean clears his throat. ‘You definitely shouldn’t be embarrassed. Drawers are great, and you — I only saw you in the one pair, but — but you looked really good. More than good. Made me wanna—"

He cuts off, rubbing the back of his neck, and Cas lifts his brows. Dean’s cheeks are looking a little red, but Cas’s own are feeling warm, at this.

“Made you want to what?”

Dean swallows.

“Made me want to . . . tell you you looked nice,” he finishes, and Cas frowns, almost positive this was not the original answer. “Anyway, you probably look amazing in _all_ of them.”

Cas considers that. Of all the things he owns, his drawers are his favorite, and the most pleasurable to wear. He’s often suspected the fact that no one else _sees_ them contributes to that feeling, but . . .

“I could show you.”

Dean inhales sharply.

“Show me?” He licks his lips. “You mean — like, you’d try ‘em all on? In front of me?”

Cas nods.

“Yes. Would you like that?”

Dean laughs, for some reason.

“Yeah. Yeah, I really think I would.”

Cas pauses, another thought occurring to him.

“I have a satin pair. They’re not pink, but — you may try them on, if you’d like that, too.”

Dean’s expression flattens.

“Really, man?”

“Yes,” Cas says seriously. “I admit to being protective of my drawers — but I’ll let you.”

After all, Cas hates the idea of denying Dean something pleasurable to him, of Dean forever associating that pleasure with someone else. Cas would let him take half his drawers back home with him, if it meant he’d forget the other pink pair altogether.

“I told you,” he adds quietly, unsure what to make of Dean’s stunned expression. “You can do whatever you want, Dean.”

There’s a long silence.

“Okay,” Dean finally says, a little strained. “If — if _you_ think that would be fun.”

“I do,” Cas answers, anticipation already blooming within. He moves off the bed, heading for the trunk. “Are they all together?”

“Uh. Yeah. Left side, I think. I layered ‘em with tissue paper. They seemed kinda delicate.”

Cas smiles, unlatching the trunk and propping the lid open.

“They are. Thank you for taking care of them, Dean.”

He doesn’t bother suppressing a sigh when he sees the abundance of neatly folded cloth within, items on the top immediately recognizable to him. He didn’t realize how much he loved his things until he had to leave them behind, and seeing them again provokes both excitement and relief.

“Is my dress in here?” he asks, hopeful. At the very least, he’d like to show it to Anna, even if everyone else seems to treat it as a symbol of his oppression.

He hears Dean shift on the bed, and when he glances over, Dean has slid to the edge, legs dangling over the side.

As soon as Cas sees his face, he knows what the answer is.

“Sorry,” Dean says softly. “I, uh. I didn’t know how you’d feel about that. After the Drive, and everything. I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t just be a bad memory.”

Cas hesitates.

Dean’s not entirely wrong; Cas probably won’t ever be able to look at it, without thinking of driving through the streets, of the way people looked at him, of the things they shouted.

But all the same . . .

“No. That was the nicest thing I’ve ever had. And — I chose it.” He pauses, looking down, uncertain. “And . . . if I experienced something bad in it, then . . . then there was nothing wrong with it. There was something wrong with — the world I live in.”

He looks to Dean for confirmation, and finds Dean already looking back, expression soft.

“Yeah. There was. Don’t ever forget that.” He takes a deep breath, holding Cas’s gaze. “You looked beautiful. Anybody who couldn’t see it was focused on the wrong things.”

Cas nods. Dean is kind, and Cas has begun to suspect he’d say anything to almost anyone, if it would console them.

But Cas likes to think he, for all his flaws, is not focused on the wrong things, and he doesn’t really care.

“Did you think so?” he asks quietly. “That I looked beautiful?”

“I did,” Dean says readily. “I thought you wanted me dead, so it made me angry, but when you opened the door and I saw you — you were _so_ beautiful, Cas. I had to turn around. I didn’t want you to be able to tell.”

Cas swallows.

“I wish you’d told me. I was — I was excited. I don’t think I’m beautiful, but I thought I came close, in my dress. I hoped you’d say something.”

“I should have. I — I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“It’s okay.” Cas takes a deep breath, rising. “You’re telling me now.”

He moves, coming to a stop between Dean’s legs, and reaches out, lets his hands settle on either side of Dean’s face, just looking at him.

Dean licks his lips, looking back.

Several moments pass.

“You gonna kiss me or just stare at me?” Dean eventually jokes, and Cas lifts his shoulders slightly.

“I’m not sure yet.”

It’s overwhelming, he thinks, to feel this way about a person. To stand still, drinking in their face, the warmth of them when they’re near to you, like your whole soul is holding its breath, afraid it will crumple when it lets it go.

He takes a chance, slowly breathing out.

And then he carefully climbs onto the bed, kneeling astride Dean, and kisses him.

Dean twitches, clearly startled, despite his question, but then he relaxes and kisses back, and Cas wonders if it’s possible to tire of this, of being touched and held in a way that makes the world around you feel irrelevant, whatever it happens to be, nothing of significance besides the feel of _this_ person, in your arms, breath mingling with your own and lips pressed to yours just because they want to be.

He doubts it.

For a minute, Dean just lets it go on, but then he suddenly pulls away, wrapping his arms around Cas and tucking his face into his shoulder, breaths shuddering.

They stay like that, entangled and breathing against one another, holding on, and Cas knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help it.

He wonders if Dean feels a little bit of it, too.

If he bothered to think about it, Cas would be hard-pressed to say whose fault it was.

Technically, Cas is the one who offered to try on all the drawers. _However,_ it never would have occurred to him to do such a thing had Dean not said those things about how he looked in the first pair, which suggests that ultimately, the blame lies with him. And even if Cas is responsible for carefully slipping the mint satin drawers with the ivory ruffles out from the tissue-wrapped stack, it was entirely Dean’s choice to accept them, cheeks red and humor in his eyes, a familiar but nevertheless enchanting combination.

And actually, _Pamela_ is the one who encouraged him to buy so many, so perhaps a portion of fault lies at her door, as well; twelve pairs, Cas manages to make it through. Had Pamela stopped him at eleven, they both would have put their clothes back on, settled back against the pillows, and talked comfortably until it was time for Dean to leave.

Of course, Pamela’s hardly psychic, so maybe it isn’t reasonable to hold her responsible, at all. Maybe it’s not even reasonable to suggest Dean shouldn’t have paid him that compliment, or that Cas shouldn’t have asked Dean to put his on first, startled by just how compelling the sight turned out to be. Maybe it’s perfectly understandable that Cas then shyly divested himself of his trousers, allowing Dean to admire the buttery lemon pair he’d glimpsed earlier before slowly sliding them off and reaching for another, movements growing bolder with every new pair, Dean sitting with his fists clenched on the bed and watching Cas with eyes one might almost describe as _hungry._

(It should have been awkward. And it was, in some ways, with Cas’s nakedness in between each pair, able to feel himself thickening just a little in response to the way those eyes watched him, but it was awkward in such an unexpectedly pleasurable Cas isn’t sure he would have stopped for anything short of a natural disaster crashing in through the window.)

No, the real problem was the thirteenth pair, navy silk like water over his thighs and buttocks, shimmering grey chiffon airy and soft where it peeked out beneath the hem of each leg, lace detailing all around the high, buttoned waist, one of the most lovely and impractical pairs in Cas’s possession.

The real problem was the way Dean bit his lip, shifting on the edge of the bed, and met Cas’s eyes.

The _real_ problem was the fact that, in Cas’s awkwardness, he’d felt the need to explain to Dean the merits of each pair, and when he’d expressed his appreciation for the indescribable way _this_ pair felt against his skin—

Dean had said:

“Yeah. They — they look like they must feel really good.”

And then:

“They do,” Cas had agreed, smoothing his palms over his hips. In fact, they had felt even better than he remembered, skin somehow hypersensitive to the touch of silk against it, though he remembered them as feeling very, very good indeed. “Do you want to touch them?”

Which, actually, perhaps the honest, _true_ problem was that Dean _did_ want to touch them, and Cas was hardly about to deny him, and somehow Dean’s hands tracing the very same path over his hips that Cas’s own had just traversed turned into—

“Oh, good _Lord_ !” Lucy exclaims, and Cas, after having deliberately ignored some obnoxious knocking and a muffled call through the door he stupidly, _stupidly_ forgot to lock after Susan brought up the dinner tray, tears his mouth away from Dean’s, fully prepared to send her on her way. “What in heaven’s name are you _wearing_?”

“Drawers,” Cas gasps out. Dean’s mouth trails down his throat, breath hot where it puffs out harshly after every kiss, hands tangled with Cas’s where he holds them against the bed. “Very — _oh_ —" Cas shudders as Dean’s teeth graze the sensitive skin of his neck, arching up, though Dean is kneeling above him, frustratingly far away. “Very nice drawers. Go away, please.”

“Making _you_ wear them is one thing, but — but why is _he_ wearing them, too?”

Cas groans, wriggling a little as Dean nips at his collarbone, squeezing his hands. This could easily become Cas’s new favorite way to kiss, the both of them in pretty, silken drawers, bed soft underneath him and thoughts of Gardens and faceless children mercifully far from his mind, if Dean would just lie on _top_ of him, would press in close, bare chest flush to Cas’s. It was overwhelming, last time, all that skin against skin, the sheets at his back, but Cas touched that skin earlier, thinks he’s prepared for it now, and whether he is or isn’t, he finds himself wanting it _badly._

But to his horror, Lucy keeps _talking._

“Your _highness_! Stop this at once!”

Dean pauses, lifting his head briefly, breaths ragged.

“Cas. Do you want me to stop?”

“ _No,_ ” Cas snaps, and Dean ducks his head again, not even looking at her

“Castiel, it’s fifteen minutes past nine!”

“Then you should go to bed, Lucy,” he grits out, helplessly arching again as Dean’s lips drag across the meat of his shoulder. That, too, feels like sexy torture, feels so much better than Cas would have assumed lips against anything besides lips would that when Dean sweeps back toward his clavicle, tongue darting out to brush against the skin, Cas decides he was on to something, when he conceded Dean’s tongue might feel nice other places, too.

Mouths are wonderful, or at least Dean’s is, and clearly, further experimentation is required.

“Oh, dear,” she huffs mournfully. “I — I had better get your sister!”

Cas doesn’t care if she’s going to go and get his _father,_ at this point, just so long as she _leaves._

To his relief, he hears her footsteps retreat, and then Dean’s wonderful mouth is making it’s way up to Cas’s, and around the time it finally arrives, Cas discovers that, even if Dean refuses to come closer, hiking his leg and rubbing his bare thigh against Dean’s is incredibly satisfying in its own right.

Unfortunately, it is _so_ satisfying, especially in combination with all the kissing, that Cas completely forgets what Lucy set off to do in the first place.

Only when the pitcher of water empties over both their heads does he realize his sister has, in fact, arrived.

Dean kisses him again when he leaves, hair still damp and face still flushed, Anna tapping her foot impatiently by the stairs.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promises when they break apart, and Cas just nods, arms wrapped tight around him as he buries his face in his neck.

“Nine-forty,” Anna calls loudly, and Cas grits his teeth, reluctantly pulling away.

“I’ll walk you to the carriage,” he says, not quite ready to stay goodbye, and Dean nods, offering his arm.

Cas takes it without hesitation, and together, they make their way to the circle drive, Cas’s heart uneasy, though he clings to that promise.

Dean is coming back. Yes, Cas must say goodbye, tonight, but—

Not for good.

Once the door is open, Cas offers his hand on impulse, and Dean looks at it, surprised.

“I know you don’t need it,” Cas says quickly. “But — you helped me up, the first day, after the inn. I’ll help you.”

Dean’s lips part, and when he fails to say or do anything, Cas simply reaches out and takes his hand.

Dean immediately squeezes back, though he almost looks confused.

Wordlessly, he allows Cas to support him as he climbs into the carriage, and once he’s seated, he looks at Cas for a moment.

And then he abruptly tugs him forward, leaning into kiss him one more time.

“As soon as I can, Cas,” he whispers. “I — I’ll miss you.”

Cas nods, quietly breathing in. He still has Dean’s blanket, carefully tucked in the armoire upstairs, but he doesn’t know how long that will last, and it seems prudent to take the chance while he has it.

“Not the way I’ll miss you,’ he says seriously. “But — as long as it’s enough to make you come back.”

Dean stares for a moment.

And then he kisses Cas again, grip in his hastily-pulled-on jacket tight.

“Always,” he mumbles, and then Anna’s calling Cas’s name and it’s time to shut the door, to watch the carriage disappear into the dark, taking Dean with it, and as painful as that is, it’s okay.

Cas’s heart feels like a bird, new and young and ready for its very first flight, ready to tumble right out of his chest and soar, and he knows in his bones that _yes_ —

Dean will be coming back for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarification: Cas muses that best friendship seems to be a single step down from marriage; this is not meant to be a greater commentary on relationships or how they compare. They’re all unique, whatever they are, and this is just Cas trying to orient his social understanding and drawing his own conclusions!


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: implied/referenced past rape/non-con (not Dean or Cas, details in the notes), warped reasoning for Cas feeling lucky (his life has been awful; it not being more awful doesn’t actually make him lucky, but thinking this way helps him, which is fair), implied/referenced past abuse (not Dean or Cas, details in the notes), implied past murder, referenced decapitation, discussions of abuse, offensive remarks about victims of abuse, details for the last two things in the notes, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> (Quick note: discussions of abuse here cast men in the role of abuser, since that is the bulk of the problem this society faces and those are the abusers who hold the most power in it, but anyone can abuse and anyone can be abused. This is not intended to reinforce problematic stereotypes.)

“That was unnecessary,” Cas complains, trudging back up the stairs with Anna in tow. “You could have just told us to _stop._ ”

Anna snorts.

“That was _completely_ necessary. Lucy _did_ tell you to stop.”

“Well, it wasn’t either of your business,” Cas mutters.

“It was after _nine_. That makes it the business of everyone who lives here. Also, if we’d left you alone thirty minutes longer, it would have been too late.”

Cas frowns.

“Too late? For what?”

Anna just sighs.

“I’m sure you’d love any child you had, but life will be harder on you both if it’s stupid.”

Cas stops, scowling.

“My children wouldn’t be stupid.”

“If you have them with an idiot, they might be,” she intones, and then reaches out, tugging him forward. “Come on. You have work tomorrow. I’ll help you blot the water.”

He immediately makes a face, deciding insults to hypothetical children aren’t worth fighting about.

“I maintain you didn’t have to do that.”

“ _Really_ , Cas?” she asks, incredulous. “Lucy said you didn’t actually stop kissing him. Not even when she started _talking_ to you.”

Cas hesitates.

“Yes, I did.” Technically, _Dean_ was the one who didn’t stop kissing _him,_ but Cas’s mouth was perfectly innocent in all of it.

Anna rolls her eyes.

“I don’t even want to know,” she mutters, and Cas just shrugs, a little caught up on remembering those particular kisses. In retrospect, he’s somewhat upset that Lucy saw Dean in the drawers, but it was as if his mind had lapsed into some sort of half-consciousness, so preoccupied with the body’s sensation was he, and he couldn’t have cared about anything else in that moment if he’d _tried._

He follows her into the room, where they survey the damage.

“You filled it too full,” he determines, squinting down at the wide, dark water spot on the duvet. “A few droplets would have gotten your point across just as well.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” she says dryly. “That’s where I started.”

“Oh.” Cas doesn’t remember anything like that, but he _was_ distracted. “If you say so.”

She gives him an unimpressed look, then goes to snag a towel off the hook, though she hesitates when she returns to the bed.

“Alright. Maybe I did get carried away,” she admits. “I think I’ll use the towel on the sheet, and we’ll hang the duvet over the banister to dry. I’ll bring you a spare.”

“That’s not necessary,” Cas quickly informs her, trying not to feel too pleased with himself as they grab separate edges of it. “I have one.”

She pauses, suspicious.

“What is _that_ face?”

Cas lifts a brow.

“What face?”

She narrows her eyes.

“You looked like I probably did after hearing about Mr. Adler’s reaction to his butchered carriage seats.”

“Ah.” Cas nods. “Smug.”

“Well, you said it.”

He smiles slightly.

“I have Dean’s blanket from his room at the Singer estate.”

She pauses, lifting her brows.

“Don’t tell me you snuck over there and _stole_ it?”

He rolls his eyes.

“Of course not. He brought it to keep us warm at breakfast.” Cas feels warm again just thinking about it. “But — I did try to see them off before he could remember to retrieve it.”

“Sneaky,” she comments, and he shrugs, a little guilty, but not enough to regret it. “And Mother called _me_ a troublemaker.”

“I wouldn’t have done it if I thought it would cause actual _trouble,_ ” Cas protests. “I’m sure they have plenty of blankets there.”

Anna just shakes her head, lifting the duvet again, and Cas mirrors her as they begin to bring it to the door.

She wrinkles her nose as they step together to pass through it.

“You smell ridiculous,” she notes, vaguely disgusted, and he scowls.

“I smell fine. Dean just gave me a bath.”

“I got that, Cas. No, you smell even happier than you used to whenever I managed to smuggle you a cup of coffee.”

Cas shrugs, carefully stepping his way down the hall, trying to keep the duvet from dragging.

“So? Why shouldn’t I be happy?” And even though he has no reason to feel this way — even though he did absolutely nothing to bring it about — Cas can’t help but be a little triumphant, too. “Dean is coming back. Just so you know.”

“I’m aware,” she snorts, and he frowns, helping her arrange it over the banister when they reach the stairs.

“How did you know?”

She finishes tugging it straight, then gives him an inscrutable look.

“You know — you’re a lot more cunning than anyone gave you credit for. Your letters had me completely fooled.”

Cas has no idea what she’s talking about, but—

“They did not. If you’d listened to even a fraction of my letters, you’d have left me where I was.”

“’Dean is wonderful, Anna,’” she quotes sourly. “’He spends hours seeing to my leisure, and even purchases non-essential frivolities for my garden.’”

“Your point?”

“’Of course, as the crown prince, he’s very busy,’” she continues, folding her arms. “’I’m incredibly grateful that he devotes the time to me he does, despite the burden it must place on him.’”

“And I was,” Cas insists, at a loss as to her purpose in repeating this. “Also, you should know that despite having no obligations to do so, he _still_ maintains my garden.”

“Of course he does,” she mutters. “You made yourself sound very pathetic, you know. You exaggerated every kindness given to you—"

“I was trying to _reassure_ you—"

“And made it out like he was some kind of benevolent hero, deigning to reward you with dubious company and luxuries that cost him nothing to provide.”

“I did _not_ , but even so — he treated me exceptionally well, Anna. Far better than anyone else ever has.”

“ _Exactly._ Here I was, thinking you were grossly exaggerating the significance of all these comforts and courtesies because you’d never enjoyed any to begin with, never mind expected them from _captivity._ I thought his highness was encouraging you to believe they were all just wonderful acts of generosity on his part, graciously bestowed upon the undeserving.”

Cas makes a face.

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Am I? Well, you didn’t have to read a ten-page letter regaling the prince’s extensive virtues and assuring me that due to his singular kindness and consideration, you wanted for nothing.”

“It can’t have been that bad—"

“Oh, it _was_ —"

“But the fact remains that I _didn’t_.”

“Yes, I see that now,” she says darkly. “I see it all now. You were so _martyred_ when you came here, so sure you couldn’t be happy! For God’s sake, you thought having one of his _bastards_ was a good idea, just because it would be his, and it made me _furious_. I couldn’t believe his deviousness — trapping you into depending on him for all your needs, making you feel spoiled and indulged when you were really nothing more than a prisoner. A master of manipulation, I thought, preying on my poor, vulnerable little brother, after you’d already suffered so much.”

Cas huffs.

“You make very little sense, Anna.”

“Yes, well, it’s your turn to be confused and vexed by things,” she says dismissively. “As it turns out, he’s a master of absolutely nothing, least of all himself, and _you,_ my sullen, pretty brother, can be forgiven only because I don’t think you even know what you did.”

“I don’t,” Cas says flatly, and she smirks, rather unkindly, in his opinion.

“I see that, Cas,” she returns dryly. “Which is probably what made it so effective.”

Cas lets out a deep sigh, looking skyward.

“I don’t know what that means, and since you sent Dean away, I’d like to get out his blanket and go to bed. You can keep talking to the staircase, though. I’m sure it will listen with equal interest.”

She rolls her eyes, gesturing him to the hall.

“By all means.” She follows him as he starts down it, shaking her head. “All those hours he spent with you, I thought he was just digging his claws in deeper. I even considered that he was _trying_ to brainwash you into embracing your fate, just so he wouldn’t have to force you.”

Cas frowns.

“Dean would never do that.”

“Much as I hate to admit it, you’re probably right.” She sniffs. “No wonder you think you’re unhappy here. You’d gotten used to always having your way, and now you can’t.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Anna,” he says tiredly.

“Of course you don’t,” she mutters, then sighs. “Still. This doesn’t change the important things, Cas.”

“Which are?”

She comes to a stop at his door, giving him a grim look.

“Which are beyond the control of either one of you,” she finishes, obnoxiously cryptic. “You’re still going to get your heart broken; there are things he can’t give you, even if he wants to.”

Cas stares at her for a moment.

And then he huffs a laugh.

“I’m not stupid, Anna. I know that. As it is, I’m getting far, far more than I expected.”

She hesitates.

“And I’m — happy for you, I guess. At least a little bit. But — you’re _not_ stupid, Cas. And you know as well as I do that sometimes we hope for things without realizing it, and — expectation doesn’t really matter. You can be disappointed — you can be _crushed —_ even if you knew it was coming.”

He narrows his eyes.

“Fine, but — by that logic, this conversation is pointless. I’ll either be disappointed or I won’t, regardless of what I expect.”

She sighs, rubbing her forehead.

“Well, that’s probably true. Just — have your fun, be outrageous, scandalize Lucy or whatever else you decide to do, but — remember that you have a life, whether he’s part of it or not. And that life is worth investing in.”

“Okay,” he says slowly, uncertain in a different way, now. “I don’t . . . is this about the fact that I haven’t spent any of my wages?”

It takes her a moment to respond.

“Partly. And the fact that you still prefer to take meals in your room. You’ve never once attended one of the social hours, and you only go to town if Samandriel or I take you. You just . . . work, and go where you’re told, and let the days pass.” She takes a deep breath. “That’s the kind of life I wanted to save you from, Cas. And adding ‘waiting for Dean to come back’ isn’t going to fix it.”

He swallows, at a loss for words.

“Maybe I misunderstood some things,” she continues, quiet. “But I know what I see, and what I see is that — you’re not trying for yourself. Even if you had good things before, even if some part of you always misses them — you have to move on. You can’t just live for memories and visits and hide from everything else. You have to make something of what you’ve got, here and now.”

They’re silent a moment, Cas struggling to form an argument, an instinctive effort on his part, but then Anna claps her hands together.

“Okay. It’s late, and you wanted to go sniff your blanket.”

He immediately scowls, confusion dissipating.

“Anna—"

She pushes up on her toes, kissing his forehead.

“Good night, Cas,” she interrupts, mischief back in her eyes, and she gives him a gentle nudge toward the room. “You have work tomorrow, don’t you?”

He hesitates, reluctantly crossing the threshold.

“Yes. But I’m not going to sniff the blanket.” Enjoying whatever scent wafts up from it while he’s falling asleep certainly doesn’t count.

“Of course you aren’t,” she says kindly.

Cas squints at her for a moment.

And then he huffs and reaches for the door handle.

“Good night, Anna,” he says, and swiftly shuts it in her face.

His satisfaction fades after a moment, though, and he stands there in the ensuing silence, his room feeling strangely empty around him and troubled thoughts of the tail-end of their conversation creeping back into his mind. He’s just beginning to wonder if he shouldn’t chase after her and ask her to share a pre-bedtime pot of tea when he hears it:

A soft, barely audible ticking.

Frowning, he turns away from the door, carefully stepping toward the middle of the room, searching out the source. After a few moments of slow wandering, he determines it is, somehow, coming from the _bed._

Baffled and more than a little apprehensive, he approaches it, and after a quick disturbance of the pillows turns up nothing, he realizes where it must then be originating. With a frown, he lowers himself, sitting back on his haunches and lifting the bedskirt, light from the room flooding the space underneath.

And as soon as it does—

Cas immediately drops the bedskirt, letting out a startled shout as he scrambles back in horror.

Less than a minute later, Anna bursts into the room, eyes searching and worry in her face.

“Cas? What’s wrong? What happened?

“You were right,” he chokes out, crowded up against the dresser and directing an accusing stare toward the bedskirt. “Dean — Dean is a _terrible_ person.”

Anna follows his gaze, alarmed.

“What? What has he done?”

Cas just shakes his head, unable to find the words to explain, and after an uneasy pause, she squares her shoulders and strides forward, dropping into a crouch and decisively yanking up the bedskirt.

And then, because Cas’s sister neither understands nor appropriately concerns herself with the _true_ depths of his suffering—

As soon as she sees the wide-eyed, grinning cat clock underneath it, she bursts into laughter.

Cas lingers in bed the next morning, still wrapped in Dean’s blanket on all sides, awake early despite the late night. At least Anna consented to take the horrible clock to her own room as penance for laughing at him, or else he’s not sure he would have slept at all.

He burrows into it a little more, tugging the bottom half farther up his pillow and breathing in. As happy as he was last night — and still is, confident that Dean will return to him — the reality of waiting is _difficult._

The fact that it’s one of the rare mornings he finds himself erect certainly doesn’t help. The sky is still a deep blue when he wakes, breaths short and hazy threads of some dream or other slipping away too fast for him to recall, but even though he buries his face in the blanket and settles in to wait it out, it’s unusually persistent.

He’s not in heat, though, so there’s no good excuse to do anything about it, and it seems to take twice as long as usual for his penis to soften. The wait is unusually agitating, and with his nose buried in Dean’s scent, his happiness feels small in comparison to the growing ache in his chest, something restless and wanting and disappointed by what the morning has brought.

Still — the problem does eventually fade, and Cas reluctantly pries himself away from his blanket and shuffles to the dresser to shave around the time it’s finally light enough for him to manage it.

Breakfast preparations are underway by the time he gets downstairs, and he’s quietly assessing his odds of getting a cup of coffee before the meal is ready when he notices a presence, just inside the archway.

“Good morning, Miss Talbot,” he greets her, albeit cautiously. He didn’t care for her interactions with either Anna or his guests, yesterday, and he’s not entirely sure what to make of her.

She turns, inclining her head slightly; she’s leaned against the wall in a dressing gown, arms folded and hair knotted loosely at the nape of her neck, and she looks tired.

“That’s one word for it,” she says dryly. “One can hear conversations at the top of the stairs quite well from the parlor, by the by. Particularly if one is trying to sleep.”

Cas blinks, confused, before he puts it together.

“Oh. I apologize.” He frowns slightly. “Why were you sleeping in the parlor?”

She lifts a brow.

“A fantastic question, Castiel. Personally, I think I deserve a room of my very own, given my contributions to the general welfare of Mills Park’s inhabitants and the frequency of my visits, but alas, your sister disagrees. And since Miss Mills has allowed her an excess of influence in the household’s management — the parlor it is.”

It’s somewhat hard to follow, though Lucy _had_ mentioned their bad rapport, and Cas gathers Miss Talbot is also subject to Anna’s biased tyranny.

“Ah,” is all he says, however. “I take it the breakfast shift woke you.”

Miss Talbot lifts a shoulder, unconcerned.

“They likely would have done eventually, but no. Miss Maxwell slept poorly and desired a cup of tea when she woke, but she isn’t comfortable going about on her own.”

Cas follows her gaze to the young woman from the other night, shoulders hunched as she stares into a pot of boiling water. She’s in a tan dress today, something vaguely tired and rumpled-looking about it despite a lack of actual creases, and with her hair neatly plaited on either side of her head, she looks even younger than she first appeared.

There haven’t been any children in residence since he’s been here, but he’s never thought to ask if there’s a reason for that.

“Is she . . . an orphan?” he asks, glancing at Miss Talbot uncertainly, and her gaze flicks back to him, inscrutable.

“No.”

“Oh.” He’s curious, but as it is, he understands that asking after someone’s story is bad form — though his own seems to be an exception to that rule, perhaps because the gist of it is already public knowledge.

“She’s actually not a ‘Miss’ at all,” Miss Talbot continues evenly, and he gives her a startled look.

“She’s — married?”

Miss Talbot nods, studying him.

“Three months. I believe she turns nineteen on Christmas Eve.”

Cas can’t help but make a face. He supposes it’s not abnormal, but the older he and Anna got, the stranger freshly-mated pairs seemed.

“Precisely,” Miss Talbot agrees, misreading the expression. Her lip curls. “His first two wives are dead, and the only one of his children to survive infancy ran his carriage into the river last year and was too drunk to swim out.” She pauses. “I understand her family was in somewhat dire financial straits when they agreed.”

Cas’s stomach turns.

A barely-of-age youth marrying another barely-of-age youth might seem increasingly inappropriate to him, but it’s simply how things were.

However, he recalls a few matches arranged between young women and much older widowers, and even he, with his cramped attic and his scars and his doomed sister and hopeless future, couldn’t help but pity them.

“Ah,” Miss Talbot says suddenly, expression bland. “I think she’s ready for the tea, but she’s afraid to ask. Might I trouble you to guide her? I’m afraid this wall is the only thing keeping me up, at the moment.”

Cas hesitates.

“I don’t want to frighten her. Perhaps it would be better for one of the other girls . . .”

“Nonsense. I don’t see a shred of red in your hair, after all, so I’m sure you can be perfectly reasonable and soothing. She’s prone to nervous fits, though, so you best hurry. They generally involve tears.”

Cas’s first instinct is disapproval at the callousness to the words, but Miss Talbot’s tired eyes turn soft when she looks back at the girl, and he decides to reserve judgment.

It _is_ very early, after all.

“Alright,” he agrees. “If you say so.”

She squints a little, glancing back at him.

“Really? Just like that? Are you quite sure you’re related?”

He squints back, and she snorts.

“Never mind. Go on, then. I actually _can_ nap standing and with my eyes open, but it’s rather difficult to do if I’m expected to hold a conversation, as well.”

Cas doubts the veracity of the first statement, but her point is clear, and with a nod, he starts toward the stove by which Miss Maxwell is standing, hands fisted in her skirts and eyes looking about uncertainly.

“Good morning,” he addresses her softly, and she startles, shoulders drawing up.

Unexpectedly, she relaxes when she sees him.

“Oh. Good morning. I’m sorry, am I in the way?”

“Not at all. Are you looking for the teas?”

She hesitates, fingers twisting in the fabric of her dress.

“Yes. Well, no, I think — they’re the tins on the shelf, aren’t they? But I’m not sure which ones I’m allowed to drink.”

“Any of them are fine,” he assures her. “If there’s something you can’t have, it won’t be left out.”

“Oh. Okay. That seems simple enough. Thank you.”

He nods.

“There’s coffee, too, if you’d like. You don’t have to drink tea.”

She hesitates, then gives a small shake of her head.

“Thank you, but — that’s alright. I find it bitter.”

He tilts his head.

“Even with cream and sugar?”

She looks a little ashamed.

“Even so.”

“That’s fair. It makes no difference to anyone else.”

She lifts her shoulders, smiling awkwardly, and then turns back to the tins. Cas quietly retrieves a teapot from the cupboard a foot away, setting it on the waiting tray for her, and she shoots him a grateful look.

“I’d forgotten which cupboard I’d been told, but I didn’t want to bother anyone to ask,” she mumbles.

“There are a lot of cupboards,” he agrees, smiling and she nods.

“I know a large house needs a large kitchen, but — they’re so confusing. The whole house is,” she adds. “It’s too much to keep track of, no matter how many times you’re told.”

Cas suspects she’s not referring to Mills Park, but he simply nods, and after a moment, she reaches for one of the tins, carefully depositing a spoonful in a little wire basket before dropping it into the teapot. Then she picks up her pot of water, carefully pouring it in after.

They’re silent for a minute or two, and then she takes a deep breath, giving him a sidelong glance.

“Are you . . . him? The New Eden omega?”

Ah. That would explain Miss Talbot’s confidence in him.

“I am,” he confirms, and she lowers her head, looking away again.

“I read about you in the prints.” Ah. Cas braces himself for the questions, or for some well-meaning criticism of the Drive, of his beautiful blue dress, but—

They don’t come.

Miss Maxwell takes a deep breath, and then:

“I wouldn’t have run away, if it wasn’t for that.”

Cas turns fully toward her, startled.

“What?”

She still doesn’t look at him, reaching with her spoon to poke at the tea basket, the motion leaving muddy swirls through the water.

“The prints. I read them, and — and I thought—" She cuts off, spoon slowing. “I . . . I guess I thought — well, if you didn’t deserve all of that . . . maybe I didn’t either.”

Cas is silent, stunned.

“Oh.”

She clears her throat.

“I wish I could have seen your dress,” she offers. “I heard it was blue.”

He blinks, still trying to process that.

“It — yes, it was.”

She nods.

“Mine — mine was yellow. For my wedding, I mean.” She swallows. “I don’t like yellow. It makes me look sallow.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

She shrugs slightly, staring hard at her tea. The spoon has gone still now, her hand pale where it’s tightly clutched around the handle.

“He spilled his ale all over it. Before he took me up.” Her mouth tightens. “And I didn’t get to take it off, so it just — it stuck to my skin, and the whole time, all I could think was how uncomfortable it was. My cold, wet, stupid yellow dress.” She ducks her chin, letting go of the spoon to rub at her eyes, and lets out a strange laugh. “But I’m silly like that. My father always said so.”

Cas is speechless for a moment.

“I don’t think that’s silly,” he eventually offers, quiet. “I hate wearing wet clothes.”

She nods vigorously, taking a deep breath.

“Yes. Yes, it — it’s _awful_. And once you finally get them off, your skin is — it’s all cold and strange, where it was. You — you feel like you’re already just a corpse.”

Slowly, he nods.

“That’s certainly one way to put it. A very colorful way,” he adds, and she’s silent for a long moment.

Then she abruptly looks up at him, eyes a little shiny.

“Did your dress really have a thousand real pearls on it?” she whispers.

He hesitates.

“I couldn’t say. But — Dean’s going to bring it to me. When it gets here, you can help me count them, if you’d like.” He pauses. “Especially if there’s really a thousand of them.”

She looks stunned.

And then, to his surprise, she starts laughing.

Cas returns to his room under the pretext of needing to make his bed, though really, his primary purpose in carefully folding the blanket is to enjoy the comforting traces of scent that curl up from it as he does so.

(Not that he’s _sniffing_ it _,_ Anna.)

Anyway, he can’t linger indefinitely, and once he’s finished, he sets off to work.

The first several hours move quickly. Cas is glad there’s nothing particularly technical about the work, because his thoughts inevitably drift back to Dean’s visit, to all the touches and kisses shared between them, both countless and far too few at the same time, and were he obligated to do anything more than haul boxes and crates and other containers back and forth, he thinks his performance would probably suffer.

He hopes Dean comes back _soon._ Once a year had seemed like a painful eternity, when Mr. Dryer brought it up, but now that Dean is gone and Cas is left by himself, even a month seems unbearable.

It’s ridiculous; he survived waiting _two,_ and he’d prepared himself for this visit to be Dean’s last. A month should be nothing, and yet—

Cas can’t help it. It feels unjust, somehow.

The sun is high in the sky, glinting off the bay when he breaks for lunch, and he’s about to look for a shady spot to take his meal in when one of the other workers calls out.

“Say, Mr. Novak, care to join us, today?”

Cas turns just as Mr. Kent’s companion — Mr. Hadley, Cas determines, though the very bearded ones are always hard to tell apart when their hats are on — breaks into chortles.

“Say no,” he advises. “Peter here’s in the mood for some gossip; I doubt you’ll get to eat at all if you sit next to him.”

Mr. Kent gasps.

“What? I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about! I’m just inviting the boy to sit quietly and enjoy the rest of our charming conversation, same as any other day.”

It’s true that this is an offer extended with some frequency, though Cas is given to understand it stands daily, voiced or not, but he generally shies away from the other men during breaks, friendly though they seem.

“Your wife’ll run a hot poker through you if she finds out we had him at lunch and you didn’t ask him any questions,” Mr. Hadley retorts, then winks at Cas. “So actually — by all means, Mr. Novak, come sit quietly.”

He senses there’s a joke somewhere in here, although he doesn’t think it’s on him, but either way, he doesn’t care to answer questions; it’s one of the reasons he avoids people.

He opens his mouth to politely decline, looking forward to a quiet break where he doesn’t have to worry about tripping off the dock when he thinks too hard about Dean’s mouth all over his neck and shoulders, and then:

“Alright,” is what comes out instead.

Both men look surprised.

“Really?”

Cas hesitates, rather surprised himself.

“If the invitation was sincere. Though I can’t promise to provide any ‘gossip.’”

Mr. Hadley laughs.

“A hot poker for my buddy it is, then. Well, come on then; we’ve got a good spot in the shade of one of the bigger ships, but that’ll change if we dawdle.”

After a beat, wondering at the wisdom of his decision, Cas quickly walks forward to meet them and then follows them on their way down the dock, toward a group of others.

They all do a double-take when they see him.

“God damn, Peter, what’d your wife threaten you with this time?”

“My wife nothing,” he protests. “A man’s allowed to want a little gossip all on his own. Not that I do,” he adds hastily, shooting Cas a nervous smile.

Cas awkwardly returns it, always uncomfortable at being the center of attention.

One of the Mr. Smiths quickly rises the overturned crate he’s sitting on, nudging aside the man next to him — possibly another Mr. Smith — so they can squeeze together on one.

“Sit there, Mr. Novak, where Peter can’t getcha. And if you get tired of being badgered, just ask Wilkins about his new baby. Nobody’ll be able to get a word in ‘til lunch is over, once he starts.”

Mr. Wilkins pauses, lifting his head from the tin he’s unpacking.

“Someone ask about my Ellie?”

A few men groan.

“ _No_.”

Mr. Wilkins glances at Cas, grinning.

“I’m a new father, if you didn’t know.”

“Oh. I didn’t. Congratulations,” Cas offers, and the man nods eagerly.

“Thank you! Our very first,” he beams. “Baby girl. Perfect down to her toes, too — I guarantee you’ve never seen a prettier baby! I keep trying to get the missus to bring her down here to show off, but she’s worried the air by the ships is bad for an infant.”

“It must be. Just look what it’s done to a fully grown man,” someone jokes, and Wilkins rolls his eyes.

“You’re all just jealous because I have the best-looking wife and cutest baby in Sioux Falls — no, all of Winchester!”

“Quick Peter, ask for gossip before he starts listing things!”

Mr. Kent laughs, plunking down and opening his lunchbox.

“Well, speaking of best-looking things — what’s the story with the prince, Mr. Novak? Did he really come just to visit you?”

“Now, wait just a minute,” Mr. Hadley interjects, before Cas can respond. “Who decided _he_ was the best-looking? Didn’t you see the younger one? Cute as a button.” He pauses. “Well, a really long button, anyway.”

There’s a chorus of laughs, but next to Cas, Mr. Smith tsks.

“You’re forgetting the redhead, you dumbasses. Never mind the Princess of Edgewater, they oughta make _her_ Queen. She just had that look, you know?”

Cas immediately makes a face.

“I’m sure Charlie would make an excellent queen, but she’s like a sister to both of them. I don’t think Dean will marry her.”

Much as he hates the idea of a volunteer noblewoman, Cas is hoping Dean won’t marry _anyone._

There’s a frustrating exchange of glances.

“So . . .” Mr. Kent starts. “You’d say the crown prince _is_ the best-looking one, then?”

Cas looks down.

“Sam and Charlie are both very lovely, in their own right,” he eventually says, and silence descends.

And then, for some reason, there’s more laughter.

“Well, that answers that,” Mr. Kent says. “Is he still around? Or did he have to leave?”

“He had to leave,” Cas sighs. “But — he’ll be back.”

“Well, of course he will. Gladys at the sweetshop said she almost threw you out, ‘cause the pair of you were gonna make everybody sick before they even bought anything.”

Cas frowns, a little offended.

“What?”

“I gotta say, not one of us was expecting it. Honestly, when we first heard he’d come around, we thought we might have to run patrol at Mills Park for a few nights, like we’ve had to do for some of the others.”

“Wasn’t looking forward to it,” Mr. Smith adds around a bite of sandwich. “Dusting up nobodies from hither and thither is one thing, but the worst we ever get is a night in the gaol and a halfhearted warning. I’m not too sure getting into it with a prince won’t land you a permanent dungeon stay.”

“Worth it,” his companion on the crate protests. “You can’t just go around stealing people by royal decree. It’s bullshit, and we shouldn’t stand for it.”

“Of course not. Still. We’re lucky he just came to make up to Mr. Novak, by the sounds of it.”

“What _was_ it like at the castle, anyway?” Mr. Kent asks. “You didn’t say in the interview, and I gotta be honest, we were all thinkin’ the worst. My wife cried when she read it over breakfast; said it must’ve been so bad you couldn’t bear talking about it.”

Cas sets his apple down without biting into it.

“No.” He shakes his head, dismayed. “No, it was — the time I’d spent there was precious to me. I just didn’t want to share it.”

The circle is quiet for a moment.

“Even if he’s not _all_ bad — isn’t part of you a little angry? Waltzing in and taking you like that . . .”

“I don’t know, the boy _did_ talk about New Eden. Probably felt more like a rescue.”

“You’re not wrong,” Cas mutters. “I admit, it was difficult, at first. I didn’t necessarily feel that way.”

“I’m sure the Drive didn’t help,” Mr. Hadley grumbles. “As if what they’d done in the first pace wasn’t bad enough.”

Cas looks down, picking his apple back up and bracing himself. Regardless of what anyone else thought, his dress was beautiful. That is not up for debate.

And as for how he looked wearing it—

Well. Maybe most people thought he was ridiculous, but — not the people who count.

“What’s wearing a dress like, anyway? They made you wear ‘em in that town, too, right? That can’t have been comfortable.”

Mr. Wilkins giggles.

“You know your wife wears a dress, right? Why don’t you ask her?”

“Well, she’s a woman, for starters. It’s probably — different.”

Mr. Wilkins just laughs harder, and Cas reluctantly smiles.

“Not having been a woman, I couldn’t compare the experience, but — it’s not bad. They’re not suited for most kinds of labor, but they’re comfortable.” He hesitates. “And . . . they’re pretty. I — actually, I . . . I’d asked for the dress, at the Drive. I, um. I hadn’t understood. How things were.”

Cas isn’t sure why he’s chosen now, of all times, to admit that, sitting in this group full of men who have never worn dresses and likely don’t think in terms of prettiness at all, but — but they _asked_ how it was.

If he’s going to answer at all, he should do it honestly.

And isn’t that what Dean said, last night? Isn’t that what Anna’s been saying since he got here (although, to be fair, she does say an awful lot of things)?

The problem _wasn’t_ his dress. The problem might not even be him, really. And the reason he asked for it in the first place was because he _didn’t_ understand, wasn’t familiar with the perspective of the world around him.

Perhaps the problem really does lie with that perspective, and perhaps . . . perhaps it’s possible to change it.

There’s a long silence, surprise visible on their faces.

“Oh. I, uh. I didn’t even think of that.”

“Dresses _are_ pretty,” Mr. Smith adds quickly, rubbing his neck. “Always liked looking at them on the girls, though I can’t say I ever thought of putting one on myself.”

“Actually, soon as I get through the door after work, I strip down to nothin’ but my dressing gown, which is sort of like a dress, isn’t it? Drives my wife batty, since her friends like to stop in a lot o’ evenings and she’s worried they’ll see something they shouldn’t, ‘cause of the loose opening.” Mr. Potts makes a face. “One or two of ‘em might’ve. But she should have come up and told me she had guests!”

“Ah,” Cas says with a nod, ignoring the sputtering laughter from the rest of them. “You want a nightgown, then. It’s very comfortable for lounging, but it fully protects your modesty.”

Well, unless it’s made of sheer blue lace.

Anyway, the standards for men, Cas has noticed, are much more lax outside New Eden — at the docks, especially, they’re all down to their undershorts within a couple of hours of starting, and nobody bats an eye — but even so, some things are meant to be kept private.

“Now I _know_ I’m a big fan of nightgowns,” Mr. Smith snickers, and Cas gives him an approving look.

“They are the sensible choice for sleepwear,” he agrees. “I had a particularly comfortable one in Lawrence, before Dean had to wrap his dead horse in it.”

The laughter dies out.

“Before — what?”

“Well, it had plague. And a broken leg,” Cas explains, sighing. “They shot it. As I understand, she was dear to the whole family. His brother still struggles to talk about it.”

“Oh. That’s . . . well. Damn unfortunate.”

“We’re very sorry for his loss.”

Cas nods.

“I’ll let him know you said so.” He clears his throat. “In any case — you should seriously consider purchasing a nightgown.”

Mr. Potts chuckles, shrugging.

“Maybe, but — I’m no omega like you, son. Not sure I can get away with wearing a dress without unmanning myself, no matter how comfortable it is.”

Cas frowns.

“I don’t know how it would ‘unman’ you. Even Dean recognizes the merits of a nightgown. He enjoys his, very much.”

They all freeze, looking between each other with wide eyes.

“Dean as in — his royal _highness_? In a _nightgown_?”

“Yes?” Cas is tempted to tell them just how nice Dean looked in it, too, but more than that, it feels like something he wants to keep for himself. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“Uh. No.” Several of them shake their heads, a look of wonder on their faces. “Just — a big surprise.”

“Maybe I _should_ get me a nightgown,” Mr. Potts says, vaguely awed. “If the prince wears ‘em. I mean . . . they say he can win against twenty trained men in a fight, all on his own. Nightgowns can’t be _that_ unmanly.”

“Forget sissy fights with civilized soldiers,” Mr. Wilkins scoffs. “He once got captured by barbarians on a hunting trip with some lords, and when two weeks of searching turned up nothing, they figured him for dead. Turns out, he slaughtered the whole camp, and then survived a whole _month_ in the Forsaken Forest, not another soul with him. Lived off of rainwater and tree rats.”

The man next to Cas snorts.

“Next you’ll be tellin’ us he’s slain a dragon and rescued six princesses from towers all across the continent.”

“I’m just _saying—"_

“That your wife should keep a closer eye on you if the prince’ll be comin’ around town?”

Mr. Wilkins huffs.

“What I was _trying_ to say is — he’s a man’s man, you know?”

“I really don’t, my friend.”

“What else?” Cas interrupts, suddenly curious. He dreads the questions people seem to want to ask him, but it hadn’t occurred to him that _he’s_ allowed to ask questions, too. “Tell me about Dean. I’ve only heard stories from him, or from his brother and his friends.”

They exchange glances.

“Well . . . did they tell you about the time he was ten and he and the young Lady Harvelle raced carriages around Lord Robert’s estate?”

Cas lifts his brows.

“No?”

“Probably because his highness ended up ruining the front shrubbery,” Mr. Potts snorts. “Still, for a ten-year-old — the boy could drive. I hear he still has a way with the reins.”

“I’ve been told he races, sometimes.” Cas hesitates. “He can talk for a very long time about carriages.”

For some reason, they all chuckle at that.

“Doesn’t surprise me. Oh — there _was_ that one time the stage broke a wheel in a ditch on its way into town, and he went and fixed it. Couldn’t have been more than twelve.”

“Well, that was before my time, but when I lived in Lawrence, I heard a very funny story about an incident with Baron Heckerling’s daughter and a canoe . . .”

Cas doesn’t much care for the story about the baron’s daughter, nor is he entirely sure he believes the details Mr. Wilkins provides about Dean’s supposed month in the Forsaken Forest, but he likes the one about Dean getting intentionally left in some woods as part of survival training and getting mistaken by a widow for a fence-builder (Mr. Thomas swears the fence is still standing today) and the one where Dean (allegedly) resolved a dispute between two smaller countries on the Western border with a game of poker, both armies at the ready outside of the meeting hall, and though Cas is missing Dean more than ever by the end of it—

It’s a very nice lunch break, indeed.

The last half of the day goes by as quickly by the first, Cas’s thoughts equally busy, and he’s tired in the good way when he starts trudging back through town.

Still, he finds those thoughts straying to his conversation with Miss Maxwell; to Mr. Kent’s wife, crying over what was unsaid; to Samandriel, with his happiness at what he’s doing here, far from home or his original purpose; to Anna, even, with her talk of change and his part in it, and with her reminder, however unwelcome, that his life _is_ here, now.

He thinks about Dean — he thinks a lot about Dean — and how much he misses him already, how even in the same city, in the same castle, having seen him the night before, Cas longed for his company, anyway.

He was right, when he told Dean he was lucky. As hard as it was, to have Dean be so cold to him, as hard as it was to drive through town in the most precious thing he’d ever owned and be _laughed_ at — he _i_ _s_ lucky. He’d expected terrible things, when Dean first came to get him, and nothing worse than a surly, suspicious prince and some jeering citizens befell him.

And now, at the end of it all — perhaps it’s not everything he could imagine wanting, but it’s close. It’s so much more than he ever thought he’d get, that he’d ever even find to _want,_ even if he spent his whole life waiting.

Because for all that he’s suffered, Cas has a roof over his head and work that satisfies, has his sister and himself intact, has friends that will be coming back to see him; he has a _best_ friend, someone he loves in a way he could not previously have fathomed, who has promised to return to him until Cas no longer desires it, which is as good as _always._

He is walking along a crowded city street, a street where no one gives him a wide birth and the occasional person even lifts a hand in greeting, and as much as Cas avoids it, avoids all the awkwardness and questions that frequently accompany it, he could talk to just about any of them if he wanted to, and meet with no contempt or hostility if he did.

Cas isn’t sure what else all of that amounts to, if not immense good fortune.

And perhaps it’s not the life he dared to dream about sometimes, before he left the castle, but — it’s not a bad life. At least, it doesn’t have to be.

Because as much as it pains him to admit, Anna might not have been entirely wrong. He thinks of Miss Maxwell, and he feels less bad about what he’s given — about what he’s _been_ through — and he thinks of Samandriel, of his puzzling preoccupation with his sister’s seemingly hopeless cause, and he understands that a little better, too. Cas doesn’t _want_ to have to fight, especially if it’s not going to do anything, but perhaps — perhaps some sacrifices are worth making.

There’s a crowd on the sidewalk, up ahead, and Cas glances both ways before crossing the street, not wanting to have to push between them or try to go around at an importune time. He’s made it past half a dozen shopfronts before he encounters a flower cart, and he offers the woman a distracted smile as he continues by, elbow bumping against a far-leaning bloom in a cluster of blue irises as he does so. He’s relieved when it simply sways back into place, no harm done.

“Sorry,” he pauses to say, anyway — perhaps wanting a moment to admire them, as well — and she smiles back.

“Looks like they wanna go home with you.”

He tilts his head.

“I’m not sure flowers can want things.”

“Of course they can. Water, sunlight, fortified dirt—"

“Things they require for survival,” Cas points out, and she shrugs.

“Hey, there’s more to life than just survival; maybe they wanna end up in a nice place where they’ll be admired and appreciated, eh?”

With a smile, Cas shakes his head.

“They’re very pretty, but I’m afraid I can’t help them, even if it were so. But thank you.” He nods. “Have a good evening.”

She shrugs, though she looks amused.

“You, too, sir.”

He makes it no more than twenty yards or so before he slows to a stop.

_Trust me, if he can’t even make a simple decision about what he wants to buy, he certainly can’t decide who he wants to_ _mate._

Dean told him, once, about buying things you don’t need. Cas remembers telling Anna, too, that it’s an act of faith, for the future you want to have. Cas always carries a little money with him, just in case, but his sister’s not wrong; he ignores his wages as much as possible, because to his mind, they just represent more decisions he doesn’t want to deal with making.

Choices are hard, when you aren’t used to having any.

But maybe that’s not entirely it. Maybe she _was_ right, and maybe Cas’s disinterest in his money is partly his disinterest in his life here, and his reluctance to invest in it, because it isn’t what he chose.

When Cas thinks of the future, he thinks of the futures he never could have had with Dean, whether Anna had taken him away or not; he thinks of futures where by some miracle, he still gets _something,_ and that something is what he lives for.

He doesn’t ever quite think of himself, of the life he has no choice but to build, whether Dean comes back to be a part of it every now and then or not.

He turns and heads back to the flower cart, suddenly determined.

“How much for the blue irises?” he demands, and she nearly tips over from her crouch, adjusting a bouquet on the lower part of the cart.

Then a grin splits her face.

“Well, since they wanna go with you so bad . . .”

Ten minutes later, Cas is riding back to Mills Park, flowers carefully balanced across the saddle, pulse fast and light with the rush of his very first purchase, unnecessary and frivolous and fated to wilt and die in a matter of weeks.

He doesn’t care.

He would have liked to have planted some in his garden instead, to have seen it all in full bloom, come spring, but such things are simply not meant to be.

These, however — he thinks these will look very nice in his room at Mills Park, anyway.

Of course, reality starts creeping in within a few hours of leaving Cas behind.

As sweet as the trip had been, as much as Dean’s already desperate to turn around and go back — as hard as it is to tear himself away from thoughts of _Cas_ and Cas in the _bath_ and Cas in _drawers_ and Cas not even caring if Lucy was standing right there because he was that into kissing Dean and _as long as it’s enough to make you come back,_ not a trace of hyperbole or drama in the simple, sincere words—

The fact that Cas _does_ want him to come back means Dean will go, which _means_ —

There are some things he has to deal with.

The three of them retreat to their rooms when they get back, exhausted from the early morning, and Dean takes dinner in his, trying to figure out how to get back to Sioux Falls — not just the first time, but all the times after.

Every excuse he can think of is single-use, at least not without a big gap in between using it — he can probably go on another river tour in the spring, but definitely not more than once a season — and no matter how many he comes up with, the reality is, they all still entail leaving Lawrence

Dean really doesn’t travel without his dad or the army in tow, and almost never just for shits and giggles. If he starts trying to take off for a week every month, people are going to have some serious questions, never mind what they’ll say if he tries to go _more_ often than that.

(Dean would really, really like to go more often than that. Going weeks in between seeing Cas is just — he doesn’t understand how he made it two months to begin with, because the thought of waiting that long to get back to him kind of makes Dean want to curl up in Cas’s nightgown and make himself sick on grape-flavored schnapps again, Sam’s heartless judgment be damned.)

Anyway, by the time he’s guiltily jerked off in the bath, donned the nightgown sans schnapps, and collapsed into bed, he has no idea how the fuck he’s going to swing this.

Still, he decides, immediately feeling his lids start to droop. He should have at least a _little_ time to figure it out . . .

“Welcome back, son. How was the river tour?”

Dean shifts awkwardly in his seat at the council table, trying to meet his father’s gaze in a way that suggests the river tour was awesome, because he totally went on it, and he’s feeling super relaxed and . . . aired out, now.

“Great,” he offers casually, then adds, “It, uh. It was amazing. I highly recommend it.”

After all, if he’s going to try and use it as an excuse again in the springtime, he should probably talk it up as much as possible.

His dad raises a brow.

“Wouldn’t have thought you’d enjoy that kind of thing, but I’m glad if it refreshed you.”

Dean quickly nods.

“Absolutely, your majesty. Uh. Thank you for letting me go.”

His father’s lips quirk, and he inclines his head.

“Of course. After all, we’re heading into a busy time. You’ll need all the energy you can get.”

Dean tries not to deflate, at that.

“Uh. I will?”

“Well, yes. Ideally, we’d have a plan in place for New Eden ready to implement come spring, and in the meantime . . .” His dad studies him, impassive. “There’s the matter of your heirs.”

Dean’s stomach sinks.

“Oh. Right. That — that’s true.”

On the one hand, he supposes it’s better to get it over with sooner, rather than later. As much as the thought turns his stomach _now,_ if he really does make it out to see Cas at least once a month like he wants to, he has a feeling that queasy sensation of dread is just going to get worse, not better.

And maybe Cas doesn’t care, but he kept coming back to Dean’s ‘other omegas,’ and even if Dean doesn’t know for sure what Cas was going to ask, the last time he mentioned it — he can’t help but think Cas wouldn’t ask anything at all, if he wasn’t at least a little bothered.

And if he is . . . he’ll probably be more bothered, as time goes on.

(Well, assuming he doesn’t change his mind about Dean altogether. A guy showing up once a month to hang around and make out with you is not exactly a hot prospect, and even if the _kid_ was clearly too young and probably boring for Cas, that doesn’t mean he won’t still meet somebody better.)

(It’s lousy of him, but Dean kind of hopes Lucy and Anna will be enough of a deterrent that Cas _won’t._ )

John looks at him for a few moments longer, then nods.

“Anyway, before we get to that — the council has a few questions.”

Dean glances around the table, uneasy; what kind of questions? Are they going to ask him if he has any preferences? Because the answer to that will be more than a little revealing, but lying will be even worse, if they actually try to factor that into the decision.

Maybe he should suggest they look at Alex? Sure, she’s adopted, but Dean could offer to go at least interview her — maybe even once a month for the next ten years or so, just to be thorough.

Tara clears her throat, standing, and tosses a sheaf of paper at him.

“Did you know about this?” she asks, without preamble, and he shakes himself, reaching for what looks like a newsprint to take a closer look.

He finds Cas’s face, albeit in miniature, looking back.

“Uh.” He blinks, staring for a moment before he shifts his gaze to the headline, swallowing as he moves on to the text below, a sinking sensation starting in his gut. “No?”

“Really.” Dean glances back up to find Tara watching him with narrowed eyes. “You’ve been a stone’s throw from Mills Park the entirety of last week, and this somehow escaped your notice?”

“I was on a riverboat,” he protests. “Why the hell would I be reading _news_? Besides, this is from almost a month ago.”

She looks unimpressed.

“She’s operating from Mills Park.”

He swallows.

“Doesn’t surprise me. Jody houses plenty of women down on their luck.”

“Yes, well, this particular one has an agenda. She’s trying to manipulate us.”

Dean hesitates, glancing back at the print.

“You think? What does it say?”

Tara narrows her eyes.

“It says that a great injustice was dealt to the New Eden omega.”

“Well, it kinda was—"

“And that the capital has gone to equally great lengths to rectify it.”

Dean’s momentarily taken aback — that’s definitely not what he would have _expected_ it to say — but still-

“I mean, _aren’t_ you—"

“And that it is likely the first among many changes throughout the kingdom to correct _all_ the injustices which still afflict Winchester.”

Dean goes quiet.

“Well,” he eventually says, uneasy. “I mean. That — that’s probably a good idea?”

Tara’s lip curls.

“Trade with Edgewater is precarious, despite mutual efforts, and we are somewhat preoccupied with upgrading infrastructure so the people might enjoy better health and comfort, not to mention fewer labor demands. I think petty social reform for a minority can wait.”

Dean briefly wonders if he should mention his encounter with Princess Isabela, but decides against it; even if it doesn’t cause a shitload of problems, he doubts it’ll _help_ him.

Still . . .

“ _Is_ it petty, though?” He glances at his father, relieved to find his dad looking on with nothing more than polite interest. “The women Mills Park takes in — some of their stories are pretty horrifying.”

“Horrifying things happen in the world, your highness. It’s impossible to prevent them all.”

“Right, but a lot more of them happen if you don’t even try.”

“You make it sound like we’re a lawless wasteland. Yes, there are violations, but they’re going to happen regardless of what we do, and we have much bigger priorities. Reasonable protections have been put into the laws, and it’s the duty of local enforcement to uphold them. They may not always succeed, but that is beyond their control.”

“Not always,” Dean protests, frowning. “Some of the girls are there _because_ local enforcement took a pass on doing their jobs.”

“Which is certainly unfortunate, but we can hardly micromanage every single town and village from here to the border.”

“Maybe not, but we can do better than we are. And you say ‘reasonable protections,’ but — are they? Sure, we say you can’t beat your wife and kids, but if you’re the wife or the kid — what are you supposed to do about it if it does happen?”

“Consult enforcement,” she says flatly, and Dean huffs. He didn’t come here to start an argument, but — _seriously_?

“Which we just established isn’t always reliable.”

“But it’s reliable enough of the time,” George interrupts. “As much as can be expected. The fuss over New Eden is one thing; we have our pride to think of. But trying to ferret out isolated incidents that affect a minority—"

“See, you keep saying _minority,_ but how do you figure? Because I gotta say, man, I’m not sure I’d bother asking for help if I didn’t think anyone was gonna give it to me. You’re sitting here in the most progressive city in the kingdom, insisting the law has it covered; how would you even _know_ if there was a problem, never mind the scope? We’re not talking about several dozen field hands banding together to lodge a complaint about work conditions; we’re talking about _individuals_ — ones who mostly can’t support themselves or any dependents on their own, if something does happen to their mate.”

“If the situation is bad enough—"

“Which is another thing,” Dean interrupts, because if George finishes that sentence, he might have to punch him, and as nice as that would feel, it’ll cause more problems than it solves. “Supporting themselves shouldn’t even be a factor. People should never _be_ in a situation where they’re that powerless. Tara, you spouted some bu— said something about ‘reasonable protections,’ but even if you look at women who don’t have mates at all — if they have shitty families, or they leave their families altogether, how the hell are _they_ supposed to get by?”

“Excuse me? Winchester allows for the education of _all_ of its citizens, and has done for decades. We have a number of apprenticeship opportunities, as well. This isn’t the Dark Ages, your highness. Nor does the council appreciate having to wade through your melodrama before we get to actual business.”

Dean grits his teeth.

“You know what? No. This chick might be grouchy and scary—" There’s a sharp look from her, at that, and Dean clears his throat, “Not that I’ve ever met her, or even know what all she’s trying to do — but she has a point. What we did to Cas was fucked up, whether New Eden’s been pulling one over on us or not. If we’re allowed to just — take people and use them, what’s stopping anybody else?”

“Except we’ve established, thanks to your truly humbling altruism, that we will not be doing that.”

“Yeah, but up till about five minutes ago, we were. And you can offer all the education you want, but these girls have to do what their families say, and as soon as they get mated, everything belongs to that guy. Even the kids they have!”

“Well, you can hardly deny a man his heirs—" George starts, and it takes everything in Dean not to just throw a fucking chair at his face, because _this,_ this callousness and entitlement and fucked-up bullshit is why he had someone like Cas in his bed, stripped down and eagerly kissing back, only to interrupt it all to ask if he could maybe see his goddamn children, just sometimes.

This is why if Cas _had_ poisoned him or pushed him off a cliff or what-the-hell-ever, it would have served these assholes fucking _right._

“Except you _can_!” he snaps. “And if he’s a complete dickbag, you _should_!”

George huffs.

“A fraction of men cause problems! We can hardly be expected to expend time and resources correcting something that will probably still happen anyway!”

Dean opens his mouth, and may or may not start reaching for the empty chair beside him, when his father suddenly speaks.

“Sir Walker. How’s your sister doing? I was walking through the gallery the other day, and I saw that painting of the willow tree she contributed.”

Startled, Dean shuts his mouth, glancing over at Gordon, who’s eyeing George like he maybe has some better, more permanent ideas about wielding the chair.

“Real good, your majesty,” he drawls, twirling his fountain pen between his fingers. “Keeping busy. She’s actually establishing an art school back home.”

John nods, George glancing uneasily between them.

“Glad to hear it. Especially after losing her husband like that. Damn shame.”

George swallows.

Everybody knows about Gordon’s sister, and they also know that her bereavement last year is a damn shame in much the same way her late husband’s body parting from his head was a direct result of a low-slung tree branch, which is to say, ‘not at all.’

“O-of course, anyone in — in unjust circumstances is deserving of _relief_ ,” he stammers out. “But — but logistically, it is impossible to provide it!”

“Mills Park seems to think its worth trying,” Dean points out, and then—

And then it hits him.

“A generous hobby of Lady Mills, but hardly relevant, in the grand scheme of things. We have other concerns.”

“Right, and they’re important, but — so is this.” Dean takes a deep breath. “Mills Park shouldn’t be a well-to-do noblewoman’s hobby, and it shouldn’t be one of a kind, either. People who need help, who need sanctuary, should know they can get it and where.”

Tara suddenly scowls.

“You can’t possibly be proposing what I think you are.”

“Why not? Mills Park provides the relief that even George just said people deserve. And as far as I know, it’s at least partly self-sufficient. It’s a good thing, and there should be more places like it. The people who go to them should know that if they do, they’ll get help. They’ll be able to be independent. And honestly, we _should_ be rethinking some of the laws that make it this hard for them to be in the first place.”

“I can only begin to guess at your motivations here, but regardless — absolutely not. It’s not a profitable venture.”

“Not a — seriously? Like, forget women running from abusive mates; there’s an alpha woman there who used to run a hugely successful bookshop after her dad died. People’d come from all over the continent — she’s the one who made it what it _was_. And then her asshole brother wandered back to town and wanted his inheritance. How the hell is that _fair_?”

George huffs.

“It was an unusual position for a woman to hold to begin with. Probably to do with her alpha nature. You can’t hold such bizarre circumstances up as an exa—"

“Esprit & Sons,” John interrupts, and Dean looks at him, surprised.

“You know it?”

John snorts.

“It was one of the largest bookshops in the kingdom before that dumbass nearly drove it to ruin and then sold it off, Dean. Hard for me to miss it. Don’t you remember your brother complaining about his little illustrated booklets going the way of things?” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I hear it does okay, but it’s not what it was, and so far, there’s been no replacement.”

Tara grimaces.

“Your point, your majesty?” she asks, although there’s something vaguely resigned about her expression as she does so.

John shrugs.

“Having major businesses go under for no good reason isn’t really a profitable venture, either. If people do good work, we oughta let them do it, whatever they are. Hell, look at you.”

The resigned look turns withering, but John continues on, unfazed.

“Anyway, we were set to look at updating the inheritance laws next year, anyway. Can’t hurt to keep it in mind. As for the other thing — feeding the hungry isn’t strictly profitable, Tara, but if the whole damn kingdom starves, _nothing’s_ profitable, so we do it. You invest in the people and you get your return later.”

She looks frustrated.

“Fine. But we’re not talking about essential food distribution, we’re talking about establishing costly institutions to serve a fraction of a percent of the population who is most likely just going to end up keeping house for new mates and children. There’s zero return, no matter how long you wait.”

“That’s not true,” Dean argues. “Everybody at Mills Park has a job, and they’re probably gonna keep doing them, mates or not. Women always do things to supplement their families’ incomes if they don’t come from wealth. And forget actual paid jobs — _someone_ has to ‘keep house,’ Tara. Trust me, if we let go of all the maids, you’d be complaining pretty damn fast.”

She rolls her eyes.

“By that logic—"

John waves a hand, silencing her.

“You said it was at least partly self-sufficient,” he says, studying Dean. “Can you put a figure to that?”

Dean hesitates.

“Well — no. But I can talk to Jody.”

John nods.

“If you’re serious about this project — and whatever else it is you think we need to change — you’d need numbers. And information about outcomes. Ideally, we’d have a good idea of exactly how Mills Park is run, how much it actually benefits, and how you planned to emulate it.”

Dean blinks, a sudden thought forming in his head, potentially ill-fated but precious nonetheless.

“Oh. Uh. That’s true . . . maybe — maybe I should actually head down there? You know, see for myself, and — take notes? Talk with, uh, Alex, and whoever else manages thing?”

John nods slowly, expression thoughtful.

“Uh-huh. That’d probably be helpful.”

Dean gulps, wondering just how far he should push it.

“Actually . . . I might wanna go down a _few_ times. To, uh. To really get a feel for things. Especially as the seasons change, you know, that — that probably affects things, too.”

“Could be,” John agrees mildly. “Guess you’d better plan a trip. Anyway, in the meantime, meet with Walker and assemble some preliminary statistics, not just on violations, but on outcomes from apprenticeship programs and the like. And then once you’ve put together a report on the operations of Mills Park, we can start discussing all of it.”

Tara shakes her head.

“This is _ridiculous—"_

John lifts a brow.

“I don’t know, I think it’s nice to see him taking an interest. The boy’s basically volunteering to do paperwork; I was beginning to worry he’d abdicate just to get out of it.”

“He should be taking an interest in army operation or trade agreements, not sentimental pet projects—"

“Eventually, sure, but — this’ll be good practice for him, Tara. We’ve kind of micromanaged him up to this point; let’s see how he does on his own with something small instead of something he can actually fuck up. How’s that sound?”

For a moment, she just scowls.

And then she huffs.

“Fine. But we’ll have to establish a clear budget, and I expect you to turn ‘partly’ self-sufficient into ‘mostly.’ We’re a government, not a charity house.”

Dean quickly nods, wondering if he’s actually back in his room having some kind of anxiety dream because he’s so desperate to find an excuse to go back and see Cas.

“Of course. I’ll, uh. I’ll see what can be done.”

“Do that,” John says easily. “Now, on to the other matters we meant to discuss . . .”

“You know, your dad’s not an idiot,” Gordon tells him on their way to the archives later, and Dean gives him a surprised look.

“What? Well, no, of course not.”

Gordon shoots him a sidelong glance.

“Article didn’t say, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the kid from New Eden is at Mills Park.”

Dean hesitates.

“Maybe. Makes sense, if the, uh, the chick who had him interviewed is there.”

“Right,” Gordon says dryly. “I’m just saying. His majesty pays a lot more attention than you might think.”

Dean shrugs, though he’s pretty sure he knows what Gordon’s getting at.

“To important shit, maybe,” he says cautiously.

There’s a pause.

“Look, I’m gonna be blunt. You’re not subtle, man. Only an idiot _wouldn’t_ be able to figure out what you’re doing here — although, I’m pretty sure you weren’t actually planning all that when you showed up today.”

Dean decides not to answer that.

“Sure, but come on. My dad runs a fucking _kingdom._ Trust me, he only pays attention to things he _has_ to, and my drama’s pretty damn low on that list.” Dean huffs a laugh, shaking his head. “Besides, once he’s already got an idea in his head about the way things are, making him see the truth is practically impossible, no matter how obvious you think it should be. He’s lucky he’s usually right in the first place.”

Gordon just looks at him for a long, long moment, and then he shakes his head.

“God bless you,” he mutters. “Alright, let’s have a look at the stats.”

And even though Dean’s instincts kind of tell him he should be offended right now, he ignores them, anxious to get started.

Because the sooner he takes care of this part?

The sooner he gets back to Cas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Implied/referenced past rape/non-con: It is revealed that Miss Maxwell was married under pressure from her family, to a man much older than her. She alludes to her wedding night, and it is clear it was not really consensual and that it was a traumatic experience for her, though no explicit detail is given.
> 
> Implied/referenced past abuse: At a council meeting, George is speaking insensitively about victims of abuse, and John interrupts to ask after Gordon’s sister. It is strongly implied her late husband was abusive, and as is typical for upper-class scandals, everyone is both aware of this (and the circumstances of his death) and unwilling to acknowledge it outright.
> 
> Discussions of abuse/offensive remarks about victims of abuse: At the council meeting, Mills Park is brought up, and this leads to a discussion of how much responsibility the kingdom should take for victims of domestic abuse and other injustices women/omegas face. Some council members are dismissive, deny the prevalence of it, suggest they are neither able or obligated to make strong efforts to put a stop to it, and go on to discuss it in the context of what the true net benefit to the kingdom is, if they did, indicating that helping people in need should depend on potential return rather than just being the right thing to do.
> 
> Dean argues against this, of course; to be clear, there is a lot more that could be said on this topic, in much greater depth, than what Dean comes back with, but for the purpose of this character and story, we only scratch the surface. (Also I don't wanna bum you all out more than I have to)


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: brief references to past abuse, some sexual content (masturbation/fantasizing, scene marked with ***, details in the notes), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> (Note: this author is not trying to suggest that having ripped someone’s shirt open is a reflection of how full the life you’ve led is. Not everyone wants that - regardless of where they fall on the sexuality spectrum - so as always, rock on and do you)

Dean’s been gone nearly a week, Cas’s blue irises drooping, if not quite done for, when his sister knocks on his door mid-morning and asks if he wants to accompany her on a supply run.

“Last night, I received half-a-dozen commissions for nightgowns,” she informs him, arching a brow. “By _dockworkers_.”

Cas gives her a pleased look.

“Ah. I _would_ like to help you choose materials, then, if they haven’t.” Cas trusts Anna, a wearer of nightgowns herself, to do the garments justice, but it can’t hurt to have a second opinion.

“No, they just asked for ‘comfy.’ Very awkwardly, I might add. They made a Mr. Potts speak for all of them.” She studies him for a moment. “I don’t suppose you know anything about it?”

“Well — we had a discussion about wearing dresses, and the modesty failures of Mr. Potts’ dressing gown came up. I suggested a nightgown as an alternative, given their superior comfort.”

“And — they all decided to start wearing what basically amounts to a _dress_ , just like that?”

He tilts his head.

“No, but once I told them how much Dean liked his, they seemed more amenable.”

Anna just stares for a moment.

“Dean wears — and you _told_ them?”

“Yes?”

“Is he _okay_ with that?”

“Why wouldn’t he be? Dean told me things like that shouldn’t matter.”

“Right, but — they do. To a lot of people.”

“Which he also said, however—" Cas lifts his shoulders. “He’s the prince, Anna. And the others seemed to think the nightgown became more manly if Dean wore it, rather than Dean being less so, so I doubt that applies here.”

Anna blinks.

“I — I guess so. Okay. Well — are you coming, then?”

Cas nods, pleased.

“Yes. Let me get my jacket.”

“What about this one?” Cas asks, and Anna snorts.

“It’s pink.”

“But it’s soft,” Cas argues. “It’s the softest cotton we’ve encountered.”

“Yes, but let’s acclimate them to dress-wearing slowly, alright?” she shakes her head, though she looks amused. “You know, this wasn’t really the revolution I had in mind.”

Cas doesn’t really know what Anna’s trying to say, so he simply hums, ignoring her.

“I wish you could have felt the one I had in Lawrence,” he murmurs, and she frowns.

“I thought Dean brought all your stuff.”

“Not quite. He’s bringing the dress I wore on the Drive next time, and as for my favorite nightgown . . .” Cas absently fingers some powder blue satin, forlorn. “Well, their beloved family horse, Mary, had plague and a broken leg and needed to be shot. My nightgown got caught up in the sheet they wrapped her in, unfortunately, and of course, it couldn’t be washed, after that.”

There’s a long silence behind him, and he glances over to find Anna staring.

“It — what?”

“What?”

“That’s — that is — what are the _odds_?”

He shrugs.

“I felt the same, but it can’t be helped, Anna.”

She makes a face.

“I — I guess not, but — _really_?”

He frowns.

“Are you suggesting Dean _lied_?”

“Well, no — who would lie about something like _that —_ but it just — it seems so . . .”

He waits, and eventually, she sighs and shakes her head.

“Never mind. Anyway . . . if you find something similar here, and it’s not too dear — I could gift you a new one.”

Cas smiles.

“You don’t have to do that.”

She lifts her shoulders.

“I’d like to. I’d like to make you something _pretty,_ honestly. Stealing scraps while I was at work was one thing, but I was always afraid if I tried to give you anything, Mother and Father would just take it away and punish you.”

He nods.

“They would have.”

“Yes, but — I think you always wanted to have something nice, too.”

“Perhaps,” he acknowledges. “But I have plenty of nice things, now.”

“Still. You deserve something nice from your sister, for all the times I couldn’t give you anything.”

He’s quiet for a moment, considering.

“Only if you make yourself something out of your lace,” he decides, and she laughs.

“Cas. That does nothing for you.”

“By that logic, me having something nice does nothing for _you._ Aren’t you the one who said we deserved better?” Cas shrugs. “Let’s make sure we both have better, then.”

At that, she softens.

“Well. Maybe. For now . . . look for something for you, too.”

They eventually settle on a soft cream cotton — Cas vehemently rejects a comparable light grey, on the grounds that it looks like all his white underthings did after constant washing — and when they wander over to browse trimmings, Anna breaks off to look at an enormous, vibrant peacock feather, a calculating look in her eyes.

He follows her, a little surprised.

“Do you want that?”

Her lips quirk.

“Maybe. Just — I was thinking . . . I haven’t been very kind to his highness, have I? Maybe I should make a peace offering.”

Cas furrows his brow, struggling to connect the dots.

“With a peacock feather?”

There’s a glint in her eye as she plucks it off the stand, shooting him a sly smile.

“Oh, I don’t know, Cas. I was thinking it would make a lovely addition to a hat.” Her smile widens. “I always _did_ make nice hats.”

Anna always made elaborate, ridiculous hats, the likes of which Cas hasn’t seen even now that he’s in Winchester, but then, she’s been wandering through Sioux Falls for nearly a year now. No doubt she understands the fashion better.

“I’d like that,” he says truthfully, surveying the feather with a little more warmth. “I like _him_. So much, Anna.” He hesitates. “Have you ever liked anyone? The way I like Dean?”

Anna pauses, lowering the feather, eyes turning serious.

“Yes. Maybe even exactly the way you like Dean.” She sighs. “With a consuming physical attraction and a heavy dose of misplaced gratitude.”

He frowns.

“My gratitude isn’t misplaced.”

“When it happens alongside love, it is,” she mutters. “But that’s neither here nor there. You should — you should enjoy yourself. We’ll worry about the rest later. For now . . . well, I think I’d like to try and make my little brother’s prince a hat that’s worthy of him.”

In the end, Cas thinks she pays too much for the feather, at least compared to the cloth, but since she smiles the whole way home, twirling it between her fingers—

He decides to just be glad she’s not so angry, anymore.

The second week is much, much harder, if only because it leaves more room for _doubt._

He’s being selfish and unreasonable, Cas tries to tell himself. Mr. Dryer had said a _month,_ hadn’t he? It’s weeks still before he should expect Dean to come back; perhaps even longer, given all of Dean’s other duties.

Still. Despite his original confidence, Dean’s touches and kisses and wonderful words fresh in his mind — the more days that pass, the more Cas starts to worry.

What if Dean _doesn’t_ come back?

What if he wants to come back, but his council had Princess Isabela ready and waiting on his return, wedding party in tow, and they’ll receive word of the celebrations any day, now?

What if they _drug_ him again? What if Dean isn’t ready to try and produce an heir, but they lock him up with a noblewoman and force him to spend the unnatural rut with her? What if they forbid him from leaving until she’s birthed it?

What if every horse in Lawrence caught the plague from poor Mary and had to be shot, and the capital goes under quarantine for weeks until it’s deemed safe to bring more horses in and once all is said and done, Dean is so psychologically and emotionally drained from the ordeal he’s genuinely incapable of _caring_ enough to come back, at least not until he recovers his spirits?

What if — what if Dean simply decides it’s just not worth it to come back to Cas, period?

He feels foolish, unnecessarily upsetting himself with what-ifs beyond his control, but he can’t help it. He tries to reassure himself, to remember the _way_ Dean had kissed him, the way he had made his promises, the way he’d repeated ‘as soon as I can,’ like he meant it, like he’d come straight back to Cas the instant he was able, the way he did after that hunting trip, but . . .

But Lawrence seems so far, and Mr. Dryer’s assurances about best friendship seem increasingly dubious, and since Cas shares his home with girls who ogle and sisters who glower and a ludicrous nine o’ clock curfew — since all Cas _does_ have to offer is his friendship and his kisses — he can’t help but wonder.

Doesn’t that seem like rather small incentive?

Anyway, at the end of the week, Anna accuses him of brooding.

“He’s going to come back, unless his council locks him up. Moping about the house is completely unnecessary.”

Cas ignores that, giving her a grim look.

“They might. They’ve done it before.”

“Well, unless they’ve done it again, he’ll be back, Cas.”

“How would _you_ know?” Cas mumbles, turning back to the window.

(Not that he’s _brooding;_ the view of the river is simply a pleasant companion to his thoughts.)

“Much as it pains me to admit, it was obvious how — _attached_ he is to you. I’ll be very surprised if he doesn’t come back.”

Cas reluctantly turns away from the window again.

“Attached,” he repeats. “When you say ‘attached—’”

“I mean _attached_. I assumed he was probably _fond_ of you, after keeping you the way he did, but — in a way you take for granted, because you feel entitled to it. I certainly didn’t expect — _any_ of that. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t try to talk you into going with him.” She pauses. “Did he?”

Cas looks down, slumping a little.

“No.” Nor did Cas expect him to, but— “In which case, he may surprise you again. He may not come back.”

She raises a brow.

“Where is the smug, overconfident brat from two weeks ago?”

Cas sighs.

“Kissing, as it turns out, seems to affect the brain. I was foolish.”

“Right.” She rubs her forehead. “Look. Remember when we talked about how unexpectedly cunning you were?”

“ _You_ talked about—"

“Your letter should have been _one_ page, Cas, not ten. You know what it should have said?”

“What?”

“’Dear Anna, I have this idiot completely wrapped around my finger and can name my demands. Please advise. Love, your shameless brother Castiel.’”

Cas hesitates. He _is_ shameless, but—

“Dean’s not an idiot.”

“With you, he is,” she snorts. “I don’t even like him and I was still embarrassed for him. Anyway — trust your instincts, Cas, not your doubts. You were sure he was coming back, right?”

“Yes, but—"

“Then he probably is.” She sighs. “There’ll be a day when he doesn’t — whether he wants to or not — and you should try to prepare yourself for that, but since you’re determined to have this . . . for now, just be sure.”

“And if I’m wrong?”

“We talked about that last week, too, didn’t we?” She shrugs. “You’re not going to feel any worse if it doesn’t happen. Personally, I’d go for feeling better, now.”

He stays quiet, considering this, and she pats his shoulder.

“Max keeps hovering outside your door looking uneasy, for the record. Your brooding’s making her anxious.”

Cas scowls.

“I’m not brooding.”

“Wonderful news, Cas. In that case, Susan’s trying to distract her with a puzzle; why don’t you join them?”

With a sigh, he stands. ‘Max,’ as Susan had unilaterally declared Miss Maxwell after learning her given name was Temperance — “Well, for God’s sake, they might as well have just named you ‘Never Has Any Fun’!” — is frequently anxious, especially since Miss Talbot’s departure. Cas had lingered on the landing with his sister when they’d said goodbye at the door, Miss Maxwell clinging tearfully to Miss Talbot’s riding jacket.

_Remember, you_ _made it to this point. You survived, and you got yourself out. Y_ _ou can do anything,_ Miss Talbot had promised her.

Cas had been a little surprised by the fierceness with which she then returned the hug, given her general coolness, but when he’d quietly remarked on it, Anna had simply shrugged and told him Miss Talbot did that for all the girls she brought to Mills Park.

It hadn’t sounded like a good thing, the way she’d said it, but Cas supposes he might have been imagining things.

Anyway, despite Miss Talbot’s parting words, Miss Maxwell is still struggling to settle in, and Cas has no desire to make it harder with his own moods.

(Apparently, her anxiety causes sleepwalking, and since Lucy’s particular brand of anxiety has _her_ incredibly sensitive to any odd sound around her door, and she sleeps with a knife under her pillow . . . well, they’re very fortunate no one was hurt.)

After all, he sympathizes. Words don’t always mean a lot, he knows, and even when they do, they can still be hard to accept.

When they get to the parlor, Susan enthusiastically waves Cas over to the games table, Anna making herself comfortable on the settee with her sewing.

“Did she badger you into cheering up?”

Cas squints.

“No, but I was promised a puzzle.”

Miss Maxwell keeps working, neat piles of same-colored pieces in front of her as she inspects the frame they’ve assembled.

“It’s a _thousand_ pieces!” Susan informs him. “Honestly, Max is doing most of the work while I man the tea.”

Miss Maxwell smiles, choosing a white one and holding it up to a smidge of like in one corner.

“You helped pile them.”

“Oh, good job me, I can recognize colors,” Susan snorts, but she grins at Cas. “We brought a third cup, on the off-chance.”

“Thank you.” He takes his seat, hesitating, then reaches for a piece in the green pile. “What’s the picture? It looks colorful.”

Susan hands him the reference picture, and Cas is pleasantly surprised to find it depicts a garden. Not for the first time, he experiences a pang of wistfulness that he won’t get to see his own completed and in bloom.

“It’s lovely. I like flowers.”

Susan snickers.

“We know. Lucy complains about it. She says if that’s all you wanted, you should have just let Alfie keep buying them for you.”

Cas scowls.

“I like buying them for myself. I can be confident of their meaning, that way. Besides, flowers are for courtship, and I didn’t want him to court me.”

“Well, sometimes they’re for weddings or birthdays or funerals or holidays or good luck, but in this case, yes. And why would you?” Susan grins, lightly tapping Miss Maxwell’s arm. “You saw Prince Dean, right?”

Miss Maxwell nods, intent on two different pieces as she holds them up to the puzzle.

“He’s like the princes are in storybooks,” she says, then pauses, finally glancing up, giving Cas an inscrutable look. “Are you . . . are you brooding because he left?”

Cas suppresses a sigh.

“I’m not brooding, but — yes,” he admits. “I’m afraid he won’t come back.”

She nods, absently turning the piece in her hand.

“There was a boy that I’d grown up with, that I liked a little. I was hoping he’d come to the church and try to stop my wedding.”

“Did he?” Susan asks, curious, and Miss Maxwell shakes her head.

“No.” She shrugs, suddenly moving the piece to the opposite corner, where it slots into a tile that has only a tiny sliver of its dominant color. “I didn’t really expect him to, but — I always liked to daydream about things that wouldn’t happen. It makes you feel better, anyway.”

“I love daydreaming about things,” Susan agrees. “I wouldn’t get a damn thing done if I couldn’t daydream while I did it.”

Miss Maxwell lets out a small laugh.

“Not me. I work more slowly, and then I get in trouble. My dad shouted at me more days than he didn’t because I’d get distracted with my own head.”

Cas makes a face. He broke himself of the habit eventually, but he can’t even remember all the times he had his ears boxed or even his legs switched for work he did wrong or took too long to do.

“I’m inclined to agree with Miss Maxwell,” he mumbles, deciding to try and assemble some of the colors before they’re laid into the puzzle. He reaches for the light blue ones.

“You can call me Max,” she offers. “Although — I’m not sure it’s not too adventurous-sounding.”

Susan makes a face.

“You’re barely nineteen, you’ve still got plenty of time for adventure. Just look at Castiel! He’s practically an old maid and he’s still taking his sweet time with it.”

Max lets out a startled laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“Yes, what _do_ you mean?” Cas adds, although the two pieces he just picked up fit with another pair he put together, and he’s very pleased with himself.

“The both of you were still _dressed_ when Lucy came in,” Susan complains. “He came all the way from the capital to see you, and he looks like _that —_ she shouldn’t even be able to speak of what she saw.”

“As it is, she shouldn’t have mentioned it,” Cas mutters. “I meant to lock the door.”

Also, he doesn’t really consider a single pair of drawers as being ‘still dressed’ in any sense, but Susan’s very excitable and he doesn’t want to argue.

“The point is—" Susan glances at the back of Anna’s head, then lowers her voice. “The prince isn’t bedding him.”

Miss Maxwell looks surprised.

“He isn’t?” Her brow furrows. “What about before?”

Cas grimaces.

“No. Because — as I told Susan — he’s not interested.”

There’s an incredibly loud snort from the settee, and all three of them turn to look at Anna.

She’s still bent over her sewing, shoulders relaxed, and Miss Maxwell turns back, troubled.

“Why did he keep you for so long, then?”

Cas swears he hears a muttered ‘good question’ from the settee, but a suspicious glance back at it sees Anna tearing the end of a thread with her teeth.

Satisfied, he returns his attention to the pair at the table with him.

“He didn’t want to get in trouble for not bedding me.”

“Oh.” She digests this. “But — you said he’s going to bring your dress. Like he’d bring it himself.”

Cas hesitates.

“That’s the plan.”

“But if he’s not — if he doesn’t want . . .” She trails off, perplexed. “Why’s he coming back?”

Susan’s brows make a bid for her hairline.

“Well, obviously—"

“We’re best friends,” Cas interjects smoothly, a little afraid of her conclusions. He enjoys them, much of the time, but this is a tender subject for him and he’s not sure he can handle the level of fancy he suspects she was about to broach. “That’s why.”

“You’re _what_ —" Susan starts, looking offended, and Cas clears his throat.

“Best friends always return to one another.”

“Oh.” After a moment, Miss Maxwell nods, though she gives Susan’s astounded face an uneasy glance. “That sounds nice.”

“It is,” Cas agrees, satisfied, and together, they work on the puzzle in silence, ignoring Susan’s repeated opening and closing of her mouth.

A few minutes later, though, Miss Maxwell fits a cluster of pieces into the frame, smiling briefly.

And then:

“I really don’t think you’re supposed to kiss best friends in your drawers, though.”

Anna’s snort of laughter quickly turns into a hiss of pain, but somehow, Cas finds himself sympathizing with the needle.

In any case, Cas does his best not to brood, and when he can’t help it, he tries to daydream, instead — daydreaming about the good things that have _already_ happened is surprisingly comforting — and when daydreaming fails, he grudgingly seeks out company (not that Anna knows anything about anything).

By the end of the third week, he’s resigned to waiting at least one more, though he has tentative confidence his wait will eventually bear fruit, and after work on Friday, he comes home and has a lonely, uninteresting bath before deciding to loiter in the kitchen until dinnertime.

Alex comes in halfway through, wandering idly before coming to a stop beside Cas.

“You have a visitor.”

Cas blinks.

Samandriel visited yesterday, and though Cas has somehow fallen into the habit of having his lunch with the rest of the workers, he doubts any of _them_ would come to visit.

And since everyone else of his acquaintance _lives_ here . . .

He sucks in a breath.

“Is it—"

“Yeah, but I want dinner, so try not to let anyone else in here know he’s in the — uh, or just run out of the room, I guess.”

Cas ducks under someone’s armful of napkins on his way out of the kitchen, and hopes Alex will understand if he thanks her later.

“Where are you going, Castiel?” someone asks as he passes, and Cas shakes his head without pausing.

“The bathroom,” he calls back. “It’s urgent.”

“Oh, dear. Must be all the brooding, upsetting his stomach.”

Giddy, Cas rounds the arch and tears down the hall because there at the end of it, hands tucked in his pockets and posture as awkward as Cas has ever seen it—

A grin splits Cas’s face, utterly beyond his control, and those wonderful shoulders relax.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean just looks at him for a moment, eyes bright.

And then he grins back, and a beat later, holds out his arms.

“Hey, Cas.”

Cas strides forward, pushes him up against the door, and kisses him.

Dean has a leg hooked around his calf, hands squeezing at Cas’s hips and face buried in his neck, scenting him in a confusingly pleasurable way while Cas’s head lolls listlessly forward onto Dean’s shoulder, drunk on the sensation, when there’s a loud _thwack_ and all of the sudden Dean lets him go, rearing back with a _thunk._

Cas blinks sideways at the door over Dean’s shoulder, frowning.

“ _Dude,_ ” Dean sputters. “Did you seriously just hit me with a rolled-up _newsp_ _rint_?”

“Trust me, it was for your own good,” Alex says dryly. “Also? Next time, you’re sitting next to each other on the sofa in the parlor while you like, reacclimate. How did you even make it six months in the first place?”

“The fuck?”

“Anyway, I assume we’re making up an extra plate at dinner. Is the whole gang with you?”

Dean hesitates, hands returning to Cas’s sides while Cas reluctantly straightens out.

“No. Sam and Charlie are gonna come next time, because — well, stuff, which I’ll explain, ‘cause actually I need to talk to you about all of it, too, but for now . . . yeah, if that’s okay.”

Cas pats his chest, enjoying the feel beneath his hand, even through the layers of Dean’s shirt and waistcoat and jacket.

“Of course,” he assures him, moving his hand to Dean’s jaw, where there’s the barest trace of stubble coming in. Dean feels so _good_ to touch, and the most fascinating part about it is that doing so only makes Cas want to do it _more._ “Go to my room and wait on the bed. I’ll make preparations.”

Dean’s brows lift.

“Uh.”

Alex snickers.

“Yeah, Dean, go to his room and wait on the bed.”

Cas reluctantly glances toward her, though he keeps lightly petting over Dean’s jaw.

“What? We often eat on the bed.” He frowns. “Are you worried about the bedclothes?”

Alex gives him a bland expression.

“A little bit, actually. Especially the sheets.”

He scowls.

“We’re not going to do anything to the sheets. And Dean is surprisingly tidy. I assure you, the bedding will survive.”

“Oh, he’s _ti_ _dy_ , is he?”

Dean clears his throat.

“Alex.”

She shrugs.

“I’ll just go wait for dinner in the study, then.”

Cas looks between them, a little puzzled, then nods.

“Alright. Thank you for letting Dean in.”

“Sure. It was kind of an accident, though. Mostly I was just wondering why Lucy was standing guard at five o’ clock in the evening. She went to tell Anna, by the way.”

Cas shrugs.

“Anna has no power over me. And I’m going to lock my door this time.”

Alex just nods and pats Cas on the shoulder.

“Good for you, Castiel. See you guys later.”

She heads back down the hall, and Cas returns his attention to Dean with a smile.

“I’ll negotiate with Susan to bring us our dinner and then be along.”

Dean smiles back, leaning into Cas’s hand a little.

“Okay. I, uh. I can’t really go wait in your room unless you let go of me, though.”

Cas considers this for a moment.

“Perhaps, but — you’re still holding onto me.”

Dean moves his hands away with an ease Cas frowns at, and for some reason, Dean laughs.

But then he pushes forward and kisses him, unfortunately brief but wonderful nonetheless, and gently tugs his jacket free of Cas’s hand before stepping away.

“See you in a few?”

Cas nods.

“Susan is one of the most agreeable women who live here — well, unless you ask Lucy. Negotiations should be straightforward.”

Dean chuckles again.

“Okay. Hurry, though. I ended up having to wait longer than I wanted to, as it is.”

And just like that, the peripheral anxiety of the last two weeks seems to melt away.

Cas relaxes.

“You were eager to see me?”

Dean’s smile falters a little.

“Uh. Yeah. Weren’t you . . .” Dean trails off, then shakes his head, sticking his hands back in his pockets. “I’ll just — wait upstairs.”

“Please do,” Cas agrees, and after a beat, Dean nods and turns to the steps.

Cas looks at him for a moment longer, and then he starts toward the kitchen with purpose.

Susan must be pretty damn agreeable, indeed, because Cas makes it to the room no more than a minute after Dean does, shutting the door and aggressively locking it behind him.

Dean, certainly not one to be difficult or even remotely uncooperative, ever, is obediently perched on the bed, an unexpectedly familiar tartan blanket wrapped around himself and ensconcing him in a divine cloud of dew and sweetness and everything Dean would be happy to breathe in until he _died_ , and Cas stops short when he sees him.

“Think this is mine,” Dean manages, trying not to look too much like he was sniffing his own shoulder where the blanket tucked across it.

“Yes,” Cas says slowly. “You left it behind.”

Dean nods.

“I figured. Sorry about that. Mind if I take it back with me?”

Cas hesitates, eyes flicking over the blanket before returning to Dean’s face.

“Are you going to use it? If you take it back?”

If by ‘use’, Cas means roll himself into it like he’s the cream in one of those delicious spiral cakes the bakeries sell, then yes, Dean is going to use the _hell_ out of it.

“Yeah. I usually do.”

Cas’s shoulders relax.

“Alright. Then . . . you may take it with you.” He pauses. “If you bring it back before you leave.”

Dean’s not going to lie; he experienced a brief moment of panic, Cas’s ‘you were eager to see me?’ making him wonder if he’d either failed to communicate something or, worse, failed to _understand_ something, but finding _his_ blanket in Cas’s room, Cas’s scent imprint too overwhelming to simply be a matter of the blanket chilling out, forgotten, at the foot of the bed for a few weeks, went a long way to reassuring him.

But knowing Cas has been _sleeping_ with his blanket is one thing; hearing that Cas wants the damn thing back, presumably after Dean’s left his scent all over it again, has Dean’s worry melting away like it never was, something warm and soft and embarrassingly squishy taking its place.

“You don’t need to wash it again before you return it, though,” Cas suddenly says, brow furrowing. “It was just cleaned a few days ago. Anna made me.”

Dean’s heart sort of staggers, helpless and grateful for the cushion the squishy thing provides. Cas doesn’t even look _abashed,_ nothing but vague concern in his face as he casually reminds Dean not to rid the blanket of his scent before bringing it back to him.

“But — I have to return it?” Dean asks, letting it fall open around him a little. “Isn’t it mine?”

Cas hesitates.

“Yes. However — I’ve become accustomed to it. So, when you’re _not_ using it . . . I’d like to keep it here.” Another pause, Cas frowning slightly. “If that’s alright.”

Dean licks his lips.

“If you guys are short on blankets, I could probably see about getting you more.”

The frown deepens.

“I . . . we’re not, but . . .”

Dean tries to forestall the big, stupid grin that wants to split his face, but it’s difficult.

“But other blankets won’t smell like me,” he finishes, and Cas looks away, shoulders drawing up a little.

“You know I enjoy your scent,” is all he says, barely more than a mutter, and no, Dean’s not going to be able to suppress a grin unless Cas comes over here and kisses it into submission himself.

And even though this is veering dangerously close to an ‘exchange of scent tokens,’ something usually only mates do-

“How about this,” Dean offers, waiting until Cas looks back to him. “I’ll bring it back if I get to take your pillowcase when I go.”

Cas blinks.

“My pillowcase.”

“Yup.”

“That I use?”

“Well, I don’t want it if you _haven’t_.”

A pause.

“Because it will smell like me,” Cas finally concludes, blue eyes intent, and yeah, Dean is grinning like a dumbass.

“Seems fair to me.”

“Yes. It does.” Cas tilts his head, and then slowly, starts toward the bed. “We have roughly forty-five minutes until dinner is ready.”

He comes to a stop at the edge, frowning down at Dean, and Dean holds his breath.

“Okay. What, uh. What do you wanna do?”

Cas hesitates, then reaches out, lightly touching Dean’s cheek.

“I’m conflicted. I . . . I’d like to talk to you, but . . .”

Dean, a true master of self-control, keeps his hands curled up in the blanket and simply looks back.

“But?”

Cas swallows, clearly troubled.

“I’d like to kiss you. And I’d like you to scent me the way you did downstairs.”

Dean lets go of the blanket, shrugging it off and reaching for Cas’s hand.

“Well, I have a lot of stuff to talk about.”

“Oh.” Cas starts to pull his hand away, but Dean holds onto it, unable to stop himself from lightly pressing a kiss to the palm.

“But I’ve also got three weeks’ worth of kisses to catch up on, so . . . wherever you wanna start, it shouldn’t make too much of a difference.”

Cas looks surprised.

“Three weeks’ worth,” he reppeats. “Is there a set rate for these things?”

Dean shrugs, tugging on Cas’s hand a little and reaching for the other one. Cas immediately offers it, climbing onto the bed with an expectant face.

“I mean. Kinda. Maybe not specifically, but, uh. If you go away, then all the times you normally would have kissed someone if they’d been with you — well, when you see ‘em again, you’ve gotta catch up.”

“Oh.” Cas looks to the side, considering. “And . . . how many kisses is that?”

Dean pulls again, and after a beat, Cas crawls forward a little, knees planted on either side of his hips, hands still warm in Dean’s.

“I lost track,” Dean admits. “We’re just gonna have to go with our best guess, and add a few onto that, just to make sure.”

“Alright. What’s your best guess?”

“Uh. Well, probably about once an hour. But now that I’m here, I’m still going to wanna kiss you once an hour, so . . . if we go with _twice,_ that should cover it.”

At last, there’s a glint of humor in Cas’s eyes.

“If you kiss me twice every hour, I’m not sure we’ll have _time_ to talk, Dean.”

Dean shakes his head, letting go of Cas’s hands to put his own on Cas’s hips, pulling him down into his lap. Cas goes easily, immediately puts his arms around him and sighing as he leans down.

“We’ll make it work,” Dean assures him, though there’s not much space in his brain for planning, at this point, Cas’s scent bright and sweet between them, original to the source and a thousand times better than just the blanket.

Cas just smiles, inches away from Dean’s.

“I’d like that.”

And then he closes that scant remaining gap and Dean realizes he lied.

He’s going to want to kiss Cas way, _way_ more than once an hour.

Kissing on the bed, Cas discovers, is a complicated affair.

On the one hand, this occasion has Cas pressed close to Dean, sprawled over him like Dean did to Cas the night of the festival, and while an honest comparison cannot be made without asking Dean to remove both their clothing, Cas tentatively decides the position has significant merit, regardless of what direction in which it is arranged.

On the _other_ hand, Cas feels — _frustrated,_ he supposes, by the presence of that clothing, by the way it rubs and pulls and chafes and hides Dean’s smoothness and warmth from him. Last time they kissed on the bed, anxieties of the festival night far from his thoughts, Dean had hovered over him, hands entwined with his own, but Cas still remembers the warmth of his skin, forearms snug against Cas’s and drawers brushing Cas’s thigh as he rubbed his leg against Dean’s, and Cas isn’t sure _that_ wasn’t the superior position (though without reducing themselves to a similar state of dress for this one, Cas supposes there can’t be any useful comparison).

And on the _third_ hand, which Cas could very well have sprouted some time in the last fifteen minutes without either notice or concern, there is one _terrible_ drawback to prolonged kissing in this position, a drawback that has nothing to do with clothing.

That drawback is Dean’s _thigh_. More specifically, the thigh of the leg currently bent with its foot braced against the bed, the leg Cas has somehow ended up astride like it’s some sort of narrow pony — the thigh that is creating a confusingly warm, firm pressure against Cas’s groin, a pressure Cas at some point realizes said groin is — is _responding_ to.

He tries to shift away, but Dean’s arms are tight around him, mouth hungry as it presses up against Cas’s and too wonderful to tear away from prematurely, and all he really achieves is rocking back against Dean’s leg just to slide down it once again, a motion that sends a violent, unexpected rush of pleasure coursing through him.

His hips stutter, hands going tight in Dean’s hair, some sound leaving his mouth as he freezes.

Dean pulls away slightly, breaths short and green eyes dark as they search Cas’s.

“Cas?”

“Sorry,” Cas manages, suddenly conscious of an ache in the pit of his stomach, the sort of ache he’s experienced before and which is only ever a portent of ill things to come. He moves his weight forward, onto his elbows, lifting his hips away from Dean altogether, and satisfied, returns to kissing him.

Except then Dean tangles his fingers in Cas’s hair and tugs his head to the side and suddenly Dean’s nose is brushing along Cas’s skin, grazing the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and he can _feel_ the breath Dean takes, deep and even and followed by a sigh that leaves the skin warm and tingling. Cas nearly collapses sideways, because he wasn’t wrong, this is _extremely_ nice, more so than it has any right to be, and it does absolutely nothing to quell that telltale ache.

“All your pillowcases,” Dean mumbles, taking another breath, and Cas numbly tips his head a little further, pushing against Dean’s hand. “Want my blanket’s worth.”

Cas doesn’t perfectly understand and honestly, can’t bring himself to care either way; what little focus and energy he _can_ muster is much better suited to pulling Dean’s undone cravat entirely free and reaching for the buttons of his waistcoat, eager to feel warm skin beneath his palm and finding that, while wonderful, Dean’s cheek and neck are simply not sufficient.

As it turns out, undoing buttons is much more difficult with Dean’s soft, damp mouth drawing a feather-light path over your throat and collarbone, and just as Cas’s frustration with Dean’s unexpected lack of conviction on that front — not to mention the acute sense of touch-deprivation he’s experiencing at the hands of overly-secure modern garments — threatens to overwhelm him—

At last, Cas’s brain stutters out some halfhearted effort at sense, and with a soft noise of triumph, he tucks his fingers under Dean’s waistcoat, curls them into the fabric of his shirt, and yanks it free of his pants.

Dean sucks in a breath, and when Cas _finally_ slides his hand across the smooth, hot skin of Dean’s stomach, Dean lets out a broken moan and bucks into the touch.

He pulls back, guiding Cas’s head back into place and kissing him again and Cas wishes he’d managed to get the waistcoat free, managed to at least shove Dean’s shirt aside entirely, because what he can feel feels wonderful, and he knows from memory the rest of it would be, too, and perhaps he should institute a rule for his bedroom forbidding anything more restrictive than drawers or men’s shorts.

For Dean, at least.

He’s just about to make another attempt at the buttons when suddenly, the hand on his waist shifts down, Dean’s fingers brushing over his posterior, and before Cas can panic over his body’s reaction to _that_ —

A jaunty knock echoes through the room, Susan’s cheerful voice calling after:

“Dinner, Castiel!”

They both freeze, breaths suddenly very loud in the quiet of the room as Susan waits for a response.

Dean’s fingers twitch over the swell of his rear, then abruptly lift away.

“Uh. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Cas manages, torn between disappointment at the interruption and relief.

Slicking in the bath is one thing, when there’s plenty of water to rinse it away.

Slicking too much in his _clothes,_ on the other hand . . .

Cas suppresses a sigh, reluctantly shifting off of Dean. It probably would have ruined everything, anyway. Much as he hates the thought, he’s beginning to wonder if there isn’t some sort of time limit on how long it’s safe to kiss for.

(He refuses to consider that what Dean was doing to his neck was any kind of problem, because then he’d have to forgo it in the future and, well, he’s not willing.)

“I’ll get the tray,” he mumbles, easing off the bed, heart still racing. His body feels — _strange,_ and while he’s not _not_ hungry, he finds himself more interested in returning to his previous activities than he is in eating.

(But without shirts, this time.)

Susan is grinning when he opens the door, although her face falls a little when she sees him.

“ _Really_?”

He blinks.

“What?”

“Not even . . .” she trails off, tilting to the side to peer around him, and he glances over his shoulder to where Dean is sitting up, carefully inspecting the duvet.

“Well, that’s something, at least,” she mutters, then sighs, sticking out the tray. “And I suppose there’s always dessert.”

Cas looks down at the tray as he takes it, although it’s covered.

“It’s not a dessert night.”

“Not with an attitude like that, it isn’t,” she says cryptically, then narrows her eyes. “Say, he bought you plenty of nice clothes, didn’t he?”

“Uh. Yes?”

“Which means he can afford to get himself new ones, if he has to?”

“I imagine so?” Cas agrees, baffled, and Susan grins, slapping his arm hard enough the tray rattles.

“In that case, don’t be afraid to rip off the ones he’s wearing. If you just snap the buttons, he won’t even have to replace anything else.”

Cas stares.

“What?”

“Forget omegas, you’re the strongest _man_ I’ve ever seen. Tearing that waistcoat open should be a piece of cake for you.”

“I’m not going to destroy Dean’s clothing—" Cas starts, appalled, and Susan shakes her head.

“No, no, no, he won’t mind! I read it in a little story in one of those street prints they discreetly sell to men when I found it in my brother’s wash. I think they like that sort of thing.”

Cas hesitates.

“Alphas,” he clarifies. “Not men.”

Cas is, after all, at least _partly_ a man (by most definitions), and he wouldn’t appreciate having his clothing torn apart for any reason, whether he could afford more of it or not.

“Well, I’m not either, so I wouldn’t know,” she says cheerfully. “Anyway, it’s worth a shot. And besides — we owe it to Max to set an example, or else she’ll _never_ rip anyone’s shirt open, and that would be a shame.”

Cas blinks, and Susan gives him a significant look.

“Never mind how _you’ll_ end up,” she adds, and on that utterly inscrutable note, sets back off down the hall.

He carefully balances the tray, shutting and locking the door behind her, and decides to try and figure it out later.

Dean’s still examining the duvet, intent, when Cas turns back. His cheeks appear considerably more red than they had been, and Cas wonders if the room might be too hot, with the door shut.

“Would you like me to open a window?” he offers, and Dean looks up, eyes wide.

“What?”

“If you’re too warm. I can open a window.”

Dean swallows.

“Uh. No. No, that’s okay.” He pauses, and then quickly adds, “Actually, though, I, uh, I am kinda warm, so I think I’ll just — you know.”

Cas doesn’t, but then Dean starts fumbling the buttons on his waistcoat, gingerly shrugging out of it, and all becomes clear.

He tries not to look too pleased about it as he sets the tray on the table; he’s not sure if he succeeds, but Dean is distracted, anyway, so it shouldn’t matter.

Still . . .

“You can remove your shirt, as well,” Cas offers kindly, not wanting Dean to be uncomfortable, and Dean freezes.

“Huh?”

“If it’s too warm. You can remove your shirt.” Cas pauses. “Your undershirt, too, if necessary.”

Dean blinks.

“Oh. I’ll . . . keep that in mind.”

Cas nods.

“Please do.”

More and more, Cas begins to understand the depths of his own selfishness; he frequently feels overwarm immediately after a hot meal, and right now, he hopes Dean is the same.

Anyways, he’s not entirely confident he’ll be able to focus, if they dine on the bed, so he arranges place settings at the table while Dean sets his waistcoat aside and comes to join him, and soon enough, they’re ready to eat.

“What had you wanted to talk about?” Cas asks, at last remembering to be curious, and Dean looks equal parts nervous and pleased.

“My, uh. My excuse to come here, actually.”

Cas perks up.

“Which is?”

“Well,” Dean says, looking at his plate with a shrug. “The council had a copy of your — your interview.”

Cas deflates a little, suddenly uneasy. He’d wanted to be done with the whole affair before it had even begun, and he’d never asked to see the finished product. He’s seen enough newsprints since arriving at Mills Park to know it won’t have just been his interview, verbatim, but he has no idea how Anna ultimately chose to present their case.

And as silly as it feels—

“Was my — they did a small portrait. Did you . . . see it?”

It never occurred to him _Dean_ would, and now he wishes he’d asked for a copy beforehand. He might have been able to have it redone, or forbid its inclusion altogether.

Dean stares, taken aback.

“Uh. Yeah. I — I saw it.”

Cas waits, but no commentary is forthcoming.

“And . . . was it . . .” He hesitates, then finally settles on: “Accurate?”

“Oh. Yeah, it — I mean. Kind of. Didn’t do you ju-uh. I mean. I kinda like how you look in the festival portrait better.”

“You do?” Cas isn’t sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Is this a considerate way of saying Dean didn’t like his picture in the newsprint? More importantly, does Dean still sleep with that portrait?

He wishes Charlie hadn’t told him not to bring it up.

Dean lifts his shoulders.

“Well, it’s bigger, for one. And — I don’t know. Maybe it’s ‘cause it’s just a tiny black and white copy, but — you, uh. You look happier, in the one from the festival.”

Cas nods.

“I was.”

Dean smiles, although there’s something a little sad about it.

“Well, maybe next year, you and your sister could come back to the capital for it and we can get you another one.”

_Next year,_ he says. _We._

Cas wonders if Dean knows how reassuring that is, to hear him speak like their connection is a certainty that far into the future.

Still . . .

“I’d like that.” He pauses, watching Dean carefully. “Did you ever find out what happened to the last one?”

Dean stills, breathing going quiet, though Cas is prepared to wait.

“Uh. Yeah.”

Nothing else follows.

“And? Where is it?”

Dean swallows.

“It . . . uh . . .” He looks to the side, brow furrowing, and then abruptly straightens. “Well, Charlie has it, like I told you last time.”

Cas stares, disbelieving.

“She does?”

“Yeah.” Dean clears his throat, giving Cas a bright smile. “’Course she does. It’s a picture of her friend, it’s not like she’d get _rid_ of it.”

“I see.” He considers this. It’s possible _Charlie_ is the one who lied, although it’s more likely Dean passed it on to her in anticipation of seeing Cas more regularly (which is a somewhat depressing thought). “What did she do with it, then?”

“Oh. I — I think she had it framed? And she — hung it on the wall, you know, so she and Sam can look at it when they have their tea parties.” Dean coughs, nudging at his vegetables with his fork. “They, uh. They really miss you. It — it’s been hard on them, not being able to see you, so getting to see your picture, at least, just — it makes it a little easier to cope. For them.”

Which is very heartwarming, but Charlie said _Dean_ had it framed and Cas is both deeply confused and unsure who to trust.

“Anyway,” Dean continues, before Cas can figure out a polite way to ask if Dean is, in fact, a complete liar, “Your sister’s pretty clever. Instead of trashing us, she kinda left us an opening to just . . . carry the ball forward, I guess. Don’t get me wrong, some of ‘em were still pissed, but it’d have been a lot worse if she’d gone with an aggressive route.”

“Oh.” Cas’s ire fades a little, relief taking its place. “To be honest, I’ve always worried her activities beyond Mills Park and its surrounds would ultimately just land her in trouble.” He sighs. “My experience with authority is that it doesn’t care to be challenged.”

Dean hesitates.

“Well, no, but—" He shrugs. “Sometimes you have to. Sometimes — it’s worth it, whatever trouble it brings.”

A month ago, Cas would have been doubtful, would have said that change happens slowly, if it happens at all, and generally speaking, it was out of any one individual’s hands.

Now, though — now, he thinks he’s beginning to understand.

“Yes,” he says, decisive. “It is. Are they going to leave her alone, then?”

“Well, yeah, and actually—" Dean takes a deep breath. “We all talked about it, and — uh, some of the legal stuff might take a while, and there’ll probably be some fights about it, but for now . . . we decided Mills Park serves an important purpose, and there should maybe be more places like it — _throughout_ the kingdom. And I’ll be the one responsible for looking into Mills Park and the people it helps and figuring out how to make it happen.”

Cas looks back at him, startled.

“You will?” Based on everything he’s been told, it seems incredibly out of character for King or council to respond thus. Anna’s always hoped Winchester could be made to cooperate, at least a little, without any actual conflict, but it’s hard to picture Dean’s council coming up with _this_.

“Yeah. So I have to talk to Alex and Anna about the bookkeeping and management and stuff, and see what information they have on people who’ve moved on from the house — things like that — and, uh. We determined I’ll probably need to keep visiting in order to get a really good feel for how things are run, and what we should do in other places.”

Cas takes a moment to absorb that, wondering if he really quite understands.

“So . . . you don’t have a _choice_ whether to come back or not,” he clarifies, determinedly squashing the giddy feeling that tries to rise within him, because it’s wrong, and he should never want Dean to be here for any reason other than _wanting_ to.

And he doesn’t, but if Dean _does_ have to be here, anyway . . . well, Cas is an awful lot more convenient in all he has to offer, isn’t he?

“Nope,” Dean agrees, grinning. “I really don’t.”

It’s hard not to smile in answer, not that Cas really bothers.

“How often will that be?”

The grin falters a little.

“I’m not really sure. At least once a month, I think — but I’ll try to get away with more.”

It’s a relief, for the most part, and as far as the ways it isn’t — Cas hopes the wait will get easier, the more times Dean comes back.

However—

“This means you’ll have to do actual work, while you’re here.”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“Yeah, but — I figured I could do it when you did yours. Anyway, most of the work on this’ll be stuff I do back at the castle, putting things together. And I’ve got permission to keep coming down here, so I don’t have to do it all at once.”

Cas nods, relieved that Dean doesn’t seem to think his efforts, worthy though their purpose is, will be taking away from their time together.

“So . . . you’ll speak to Alex and Anna while I’m at the docks. And you’ll be here when I return?”

Dean smiles, nudging Cas’s foot under the table like he used to do in Lawrence.

“That’s the plan.”

“And the days I don’t have work?”

Dean lifts his shoulders.

“Then we do whatever you want, Cas.”

Cas nods, calmly arranging a bite of his meal as he suddenly wonders if this is some sort of hallucination. Things appear to be neatly falling into place, to a far greater degree than he would have thought possible, and in addition to all this good fortune, Cas is being offered an unexpected amount of _certainty._

Of course, things can change — things can always change, and Cas has no doubt he’ll be not-brooding in a few more weeks’ time — but even if he fears Dean rethinking his interest or their friendship, he won’t have to worry about inconsistent excuses and permissions from the King.

Dean will come — often — and all that seems to be necessary for it is that he continue to want to.

“I’ll think about it,” is all he says, and for some reason, Dean tilts his chin up slightly, sniffing.

His face lights up, foot firmly bumping Cas’s once again.

“Okay, Cas. I’m lookin’ forward to it.”

Cas smiles back, sliding his other foot forward, so Dean’s is tucked between them, and reluctantly focuses on his meal.

He’s looking forward to it, too.

To Cas’s intense frustration, he’s just managed to get Dean back on the bed after a pleasant but unexpectedly lengthy conversation, after which he even coaxed him out of his shirt (if ‘sternly demanding he remove it’ after Cas failed to maneuver buttons, once again undone by Dean’s mouth on his neck, counts as ‘coaxing’) when Anna knocks on the door.

Cas is erect and slicking and Dean’s skin is hot and flushed and throwing off the glorious, intoxicating scent of spiced woods that always seems to accompany things like this, and the only reason he doesn’t hurl a pillow at the door and demand she go away is because Dean’s knee is planted between his own and if he lowers himself any further down (which seems likely, once he’s finished undoing the _other_ half of Cas’s buttons), he’s going to feel what Cas’s body is doing and he’s probably going to stop kissing him, anyway.

Cas is sure he’s been more frustrated than he is now, but for the life of him, he can’t remember when that was.

Anyway, it’s just Anna, so Cas untangles his shirt from Dean’s hands and pries himself away and even though he falters, experiencing a strangely boneless sensation when Dean lets out a low, unhappy growl beneath him, he quickly recovers and makes his way to the door without care for his appearance.

“Nine-ten, C—" she starts when he opens it, then immediately steps back, wrinkling her nose. “Cas.”

“What?” he mumbles, tugging at the waistband on his pants. Whatever relief his dysfunction may offer during heat, Cas can’t help but wish he never had to deal with it at all; the rest of time, it can be an impossible _nuisance._

Anna just sighs loudly.

“Just — button your shirt and come down, alright?”

Cas rolls his eyes.

“I know. We’ll be down soon.”

And then he shuts the door, fixing Dean with a dour look.

“It’s after nine,” he informs him sadly, and Dean huffs, looking as frustrated as Cas feels.

It’s actually a very pleasant sight, Cas thinks guiltily, the flush on Dean’s face continuing on into his bare, beautifully-formed torso, his hair an incomprehensible wreck where Cas’s hands have woven disaster through it. He’s absolutely unacceptable for company, but Cas finds he likes Dean very well like this, and he’s more sorry than ever to see their activities cut short.

Just once, he thinks, sighing. Just once, he’d like to kiss Dean all through the night, just to see if he _could_ get tired of it.

“I guess it’s for the best,” Dean mutters, and Cas frowns at him, though Dean has already turned away to retrieve his shirt.

The curfew is a reprehensible violation of this so-called ‘free will’ Winchesterians are supposedly so fond of; how on earth can Dean think it’s for the _best_?

Dean scoots off the bed, gathering his jacket and carefully folding up the tartan blanket, a small smile tugging at his lips. Cas experiences a stab of resentment; even when the blanket is returned, it will be at the cost of Dean’s departure.

“You gonna button your shirt?” Dean asks, raising a brow, and Cas makes a face, reluctantly reaching for his buttons.

“I still think this is unreasonable,” he mumbles, carelessly fastening them.

“Skipped one,” Dean offers, and Cas ignores him.

Anna can have her fits, if she’d like. Cas will have another kiss at the door, and again at the carriage, if he has _his_ way.

He does, of course, some petty part of him satisfied when Dean at last pulls away and lets go of his hands and drives off and Cas returns to an impatient Anna in the foyer, the hour hand of her watch just shy of ten.

“My apologies,” he says, and it’s clear by her look that she doesn’t believe him.

“You could at least _try._ ”

Cas gives her a sidelong glance.

“I certainly could, but why should I?”

She squints.

“So I can go to bed.”

“Then go to bed. I can see Dean out myself.”

“What, at three in the morning?”

Cas just rolls his eyes.

“In any case, where is Susan? I’d like to thank her for her very kind understanding and cooperation in the hosting of my guest.”

Anna frowns.

“Actually, where _is_ Susan?”

“In town,” Billie’s voice floats out from the parlor, then, and he and Anna exchange a look before rounding the corner. She’s reading on the settee, though she briefly glances up, a brow raised, before turning back to her book.

“At this hour? By herself?”

Billie’s lips quirk.

“Oh, no. Not by herself. Miss Maxwell is with her.”

Anna starts.

“ _Max_? In _town_? At _night_?”

“If it helps,” Billie murmurs idly. “Lucy went with them.”

Anna gapes, and Cas must admit that he, too, is distracted from the high of Dean’s visit, fascinated by this turn of events and the unlikely group involved in them.

“But — _why_?”

“Concern for their safety, I believe,” Billie says mildly, though Cas has the strong sense that she’s amused. “She brought her rapier with her.”

“Oh, God,” Anna mumbles, rubbing her forehead. “Okay, and — what prompted this expedition, again?”

At last, Billie looks back up, humor now unmistakable.

“Well, if I understand correctly, Susan had some doubts about Castiel’s ability to act within his own interests.”

Anna stares.

“Meaning?”

One shoulder lifts, Billie’s dark, curly hair falling over it.

“‘A seduction is in order,’” she quotes, and Anna groans.

“He doesn’t need any help, trust me,” Anna mutters, then sighs. “Any chance you know why they thought going into town this late at night would somehow _help_?”

“Mm. There was some confusion about intimacy between two men. Max suggested they visit a tavern.”

“To do _what_?”

“Apparently, her brother learned a variety of . . . interesting things, by talking to people at taverns,” Billie offers, then returns her attention to her book, seemingly unconcerned. “We’ll see how they do.”

“Oh, my _God,_ ” Anna huffs, and though Cas sympathizes with her worry — he, himself, hates being out after dark — a part of him is a little disappointed he wasn’t invited.

Dean had assured him that he knew what to do, but he wasn’t very informative the night of the festival, and even if Dean isn’t interested in bedding him _now —_ that could change. Alphas are like that, as far as Cas understands. Sometimes they randomly feel like bedding someone, and if Cas happens to be the nearest available someone, he’s hardly going to deny Dean.

Unless the reason Dean doesn’t want to bed him is _because_ it’s different between men. Dean said him being a man wasn’t a problem, but ‘not a problem’ and ‘not his preference’ are different.

He’s suddenly very, very curious as to what information Susan and the others will turn up.

“Alright,” Anna sighs. “Alex says town is fairly safe, even at night, so I suppose we’ll just — let them return when they return.”

Personally, Cas thinks it’s very unfair that the girls are allowed to go out exploring taverns after nine, but _Cas_ can’t even have a quiet, well-behaved guest kiss him in his underthings more than a few minutes past the hour; still, he’s accustomed to a double standard.

Anyway, he follows Anna upstairs and readies himself for bed, and though he’s surprised to find himself a little troubled by the absence of the blanket, despite its washing, Dean’s scent still lingers in the room around him.

Cas falls asleep content.

***

As it turns out, bringing Cas’s blanket back with him was a mistake.

Dean’s got to get up early and have breakfast with Cas, tomorrow, and then he has work to do, has to have difficult conversations with someone who still thinks he’s taking advantage of her little brother — to be fair, Dean’s not totally sure he isn’t — and then he needs to successfully romance Cas so Cas will keep letting him come back and maybe even think about moving to Lawrence someday in the future so they can hang out _all_ the time or perhaps even share a bed so Dean can sleep with the real thing instead of just a fifteen-minute sketch he lied about keeping, and all in all, it promises to be a very busy day.

Which means he should get some sleep.

And he means to. In fact, he has it all planned out in his head, curling up in his room at Bobby’s and wrapping the tartan blanket around himself and letting Cas’s sweet petrichor scent soothe him to a sleep full of soft, happy dreams, and he tries that; he really does.

Except — Cas’s scent isn’t as soothing as he’s expecting it to be.

In fact, all it does is wake him _up,_ make him think about kissing Cas, about the way Cas shoved his hands up Dean’s shirt, seeking out skin and clearly relishing in the way it felt when he found it.

It makes him think about the way he _bared_ for Dean, like Dean could have announced his intentions to bite him and Cas would have just tilted his head to give him better access; about the way Cas asked for a fucking _scent_ token, like Dean was already his mate, was someone he’d even consider having as one; about the way Dean could have sworn for a moment, Cas perched over his thigh, that he felt some hardness, like kissing Dean was turning Cas _on._

And thinking about all the stuff that _did_ happen just makes him think about all the stuff that didn’t, and instead of being asleep by ten-thirty the way he planned, Dean finds himself with his nose buried in the blanket at a quarter after eleven, swallowing a moan as he thrusts into his own fist and pictures Cas underneath him, replaying the sounds he made and imagining the ones he hasn’t, imagining how it would feel to peel off Cas’s sinfully pretty drawers and part his thighs and sink into the tight, wet heat of him, to be _welcomed,_ to be _wanted,_ Cas’s strong, graceful hands clinging to his back, low voice urging him on, and Dean feels so, so _guilty,_ knows he shouldn’t be thinking about things Cas as good as said he didn’t want, but he can’t help it.

In his hand, his knot swells, and in his head, he buries it inside of Cas, feels Cas clench and squirm around him, hears Cas cry out in pleasure, taking everything Dean has to give and more, and he bares his teeth with a snarl and sinks them into the blanket as he comes all over the sheet underneath him, wishing it was a warm body that could lock him in place, just reflecting the desire that body’s owner really had.

Ashamed and still buzzing with the aftershocks, Dean cleans himself up and goes to sleep, assuring himself he’ll have better self-control tomorrow.

He wakes up, lungs filled with rain and a fruit that doesn’t quite map to anything Dean’s ever actually eaten—

And then he does it all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> Sexual content: After leaving Cas and returning to Bobby's estate to sleep, Dean ends up reflecting on the evening and masturbating to a fantasy of being intimate with and knotting Cas; it is indicated that, despite feeling guilty over it, he wakes up to Cas's scent on the blanket he brought back and does it again.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: discussions of anal sex (please see additional note), implied/referenced racism (details in the notes), discussions of inequality/abuse (consistent with others in this story), sexual content (marked with *** at the beginning and end if you’d like to skip it, more detail in the notes), please let me know if I missed anything.

Cas wakes much less content some time after one o’ clock, to a series of thumps and crashes echoing up through the floor. Anna’s already in the hall with a candle when he reluctantly stumbles out, a few other sleepy faces appearing in doorways around them, and as they near the stairs, a chorus of giggles and loud whispers can be heard floating up.

“Ah. I think they’ve returned.”

Anna rubs her eyes, candle tottering a little in its holder.

“I can hear that,” she mumbles. “Alright, let’s go count heads. They sound happy, at least.”

Evidently satisfied, the others retreat back to their beds, and although Cas has work tomorrow and would kind of like to do the same . . .

He can’t help but wonder if their mission bore fruit.

Together, he and Anna make their way down to the lower floor, and the party fumbling their way up the first flight cry out when the two of them turn the corner with the light.

Then they all burst into giggles.

“Good God, Anna, what are you doing up?”

“Investigating what woke me,” Anna returns dryly, and Susan laughs harder, leaning against the rail. Her dark hair has almost entirely escaped its bun, a pretty wave to it, and as delighted as she looks, there’s a bright red stain on her teeth Cas finds alarming.

“Sorry, sorry. We’re very loud. ‘Cept Max. Even after that many red things, she’s still quiet as a mouse. But still fun!” Susan adds, blindly reaching behind her, and Max quickly scampers up another step, trying to get her head in place to be patted. “Good fun. So much fun! Even Lucy knows how to have fun.”

“Would have been rude not to,” Lucy slurs, tapping the banister with her rapier. “Alfie was there, you know, with the rest of the bakery workers. He put all our nice red drinks on his tab an’ everything. Always said he was a good boy.”

“I never said he _wasn’t,”_ Susan protests, and Lucy sniffs.

“Might as well have, with all your — your heartless shenanigans to let poor Castiel fall into that conniving prince’s talons!”

“We should all be so lucky to fall into that ‘conniving prince’s talons,’” Susan mocks, then giggles, patting Max’s head again. “Bet he’s _great_ with his talons.”

“Shameless!” Lucy cries, and Cas briefly spares a thought to wondering if that’s why he and Susan get along.

“Oh, settle down, Lucy,” Susan huffs. “Samandriel _is_ a good boy, and he’ll be a good man, too, but Cas has a shot with a handsome prince who bathes him and wears drawers for him and comes to see him even though he must have _hundreds_ of women in the capital vying for his attention. There’s no contest.”

Cas frowns, suddenly feeling much less warmly toward her.

“Some of us like to enjoy our baths _alone_ ,” Lucy argues sullenly.

“But that’s not any fun,” Max abruptly interjects, blinking owlishly. “Before I had to get married, I always took baths with my sisters. It’s loud, but you can play games and gossip.” Her face suddenly falls. “I miss my sisters. I hope they’re alright.”

Susan practically trips over the step, crowding in close.

“I’m sure they’re doing just fine, Max,” she promises. “And didn’t you say your mother told your father she’d never speak to him again if he did that to one of her children a second time?”

“She did,” Max agrees sadly. “At the wedding. She was crying in the church kitchen. But I don’t think I was supposed to hear.”

“You see? They’ll be fine.”

“But what if they aren’t?” she asks, lip trembling, and Lucy suddenly straightens, thwacking her rapier against the banister.

Anna winces.

“ _Careful_ —" she starts, but Lucy just shakes her head.

“Miss Talbot promised to keep checking on them!” she declares loudly. “And if she ever finds anything amiss—" Another thwack, and even in the dim light of the candle, Cas thinks he sees a dent appear. “Then we’ll all go and show the — the _bastards_ what’s what!”

Max nods, wiping at her eyes.

“Okay. If you’re sure.”

Lucy squares her shoulders, lifting her arm.

“If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s the triumph of justice!” she cries, and Anna hastily reaches out.

“Yes, but please don’t—"

Yet again, Lucy brings the rapier down on the banister, Susan beaming on approvingly, and Anna simply sighs.

“Right. Cas, take them to your room so we can watch them while they sober up.”

He frowns.

“What about you?”

“I’m going to make you all some warm milk and _hopefully,_ we’ll get some sleep.” She thrusts the candle at him and then starts down the stairs. “Make sure they _all_ follow you.”

They quickly scramble to flatten themselves against the wall and railing, making way for her.

“Are you bringing us tea?” Susan asks enthusiastically. “My stomach hasn’t felt right since the fifth red thing.”

“Something like that,” Anna says, dry. “Follow Cas and I’ll bring it to you.”

“Castiel!” Max exclaims, suddenly scrambling up a few steps, eyes searching. “Castiel, we brought you something!”

Susan gasps, immediately following, eyes delighted as she starts fumbling around in her pockets.

“Yes, yes, we brought you a gift, so you can seduce your prince _properly_!”

“What?”

Max helps Susan to the top of the stairs as she finally pulls something out of her dress pocket, proudly shoving a little bottle at him.

He stares at the unmarked glass container, baffled.

“What . . . is it?”

They exchange looks and giggle, Lucy huffing sullenly behind them.

“Actually, I’m not entirely sure,” Susan whispers conspiratorially. “But the barkeep says it _is_ different for men, and you need this.”

Cas blinks, suddenly a little nervous.

“We do?” He doesn’t remember Dean having anything like this after the festival.

They both bob their heads, eyes big.

“Did you know . . . did you know, Castiel,” Max starts, glancing around nervously. “He’s going to — his — it goes in—"

“He puts his cock in your _butt_!” Susan cries, and there’s a choked sound from the hallway below, though they all ignore it.

Max covers her face.

“I never knew,” she whispers into her hands. “I thought things only ever came _out_ of there.”

“But they don’t!” Susan crows. “Max was absolutely right, you really can learn anything at a tavern. And the barkeep was _so_ nice, he had his kitchen boy run see the doctor about this especially for us because he was worried our friend — that’s you, of course — would hurt himself! _And_ he told me my eyes were pretty!”

Susan’s eyes _are_ very pretty, but apparently her mother-in-law always criticized the ‘unsightly evidence of foreign blood’ and she can be rather sensitive about them.

Anyways, Cas, for his part, is unsurprised by this revelation, but then, it _is_ his body, and there certainly isn’t anywhere else for Dean’s ‘cock’ to go. Not unless they’re about to tell him Dean would put it in Cas’s _mouth_ or something ridiculous like that.

Still, in the event that Dean _does_ change his mind about the bedding . . .

“What do I do with it?” he asks, holding the bottle a little closer to the candle. The glass is dark blue, and Cas is struggling to determine anything about what’s inside of it.

“Don’t worry, it’s very simple,” Max assures him, looking vaguely proud. “That goes inside, first, and then he puts it on his fingers and _they_ go inside you, next—"

“But one at a time!” Susan interrupts, tone urgent. “He was very clear about _one at a time.”_

“Alright.” This, at least, sounds familiar, based on what Dean had said that one night.

“But the most important thing is to relax,” Max adds, furrowing her brow. “He says it gets easier, but nothing ever happens if you don’t relax.”

“That makes sense,” Susan muses. “If it’s anything like pooping.”

“Is it? He didn’t say it was.”

“Well, it must be, right? Nothing comes out if you don’t relax, so nothing would be able to go in, either.”

“Ohhh,” Max breathes. “That _does_ make sense.”

“Vulgar,” Lucy mutters. “Both of you.”

Cas glances up, alarmed to find her trying to balance her rapier on her head.

“Ignore her. Lucy’s never going to do anything exciting, not with butts or anything else.”

“I do plenty of exciting things,” Lucy argues. “Why, just last week I caught a rabbit by the river with my own bare hands.”

They all go silent.

“The poor thing was terrified, so I let it go, of course,” she admits. “But I could have eaten it if I wanted to.” She lifts her chin. “Men really _aren’t_ necessary, least of all alphas.”

“Huh,” Susan remarks. “That _is_ exciting, actually.”

“You should have brought it home,” Max adds forlornly. “We could have named it and kept it in the house. I like rabbits.”

“Me, too,” Cas agrees, unable to help a frown, and Lucy scowls back, letting the rapier fall to her side.

“How was I supposed to know that? I was worried someone in the kitchen would try to cook it!”

“Well, maybe next time,” Susan offers cheerily. “Anyway — what were we talking about?”

“We were telling Castiel how to be intimate with the prince.”

“Oh, right. Yes, so once all his fingers fit—"

Cas recoils.

“ _All_ of them?” Dean’s hands are hardly what anyone would consider _small._ “Even his thumb?”

He’s suddenly very, very glad Dean declined to bed him. Obviously, it was never going to be _comfortable,_ but if he pictures all _five_ of Dean’s fingers going inside him—

“I don’t think so? It’s just supposed to make it so his cock fits easy.” Susan licks her lips. “Now that I think of it, you took a bath with him, didn’t you? How big _is_ his cock?”

Max giggles.

“Why are they _called_ that? It doesn’t look anything like a rooster.”

“Um.” Cas tries to think back, still stuck on the idea of what, exactly, might be going into his rear. “He said I wasn’t allowed to look.”

“Really?” She looks surprised. “That’s weird. Men are always trying to make you look at their—"

“You four. Cas’s room. Stop talking about body parts in the stairwell.”

Cas flinches, shooting Anna a guilty look.

“Sorry. I got distracted.”

“I see that,” she huffs, though she looks amused. “Now go, before you wake up the whole house.”

Lured by the promise of hot milk and tea — “If you _behave_ yourselves.” — they manage to get the three girls to Cas’s room, where they all settle on the rug at the foot of the bed, curiously looking around.

“Oh, gosh,” Susan exclaims, once Anna’s lit more candles. “Look at your hair, Max, you’ve only still got one plait.”

Max looks disproportionately horrified by this news.

“What? Will someone fix it? I don’t like to sleep with it in my face.”

Lucy quickly sets her rapier aside.

“I’ll do it.”

“I can do it,” Susan protests, and Lucy gives her an uneasy look.

“If it’s all the same, I’m not sure you can. You’re the untidiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“Excuse me? I’m _extremely_ tidy!”

“You’re really not,” Lucy mutters. “I saw the way you made up poor Max’s bed for her. The sheet corners were a disaster.”

“Because no one gives a damn about sheet corners!”

“Well, _I_ do, and every house I’ve ever worked in did, and not having the sense to know what others care about is as sure a sign of untidiness as any. So I’ll fix her plait.” She pauses, then adds, “Else she’ll look like she’s been strolling through a hurricane.”

Susan gapes.

“She will _not_ —"

“Your own hair looks like something with feathers is about to nest in it.”

“At least a bird would bother!” Susan retorts hotly. “There’s not a creature on God’s green earth that’d feel comfortable making a home anywhere near _you_.”

Lucy stiffens.

“Well, then! Perhaps you ought to move _out_ , you — you silly heathen!”

“Silly heathen?” Susan echoes, incredulous. “Better than a — a dumb Northern _corset,_ with stupid, stuffy ideas that don’t help anybody, least of all self-respecting girls who know how to _enjoy_ themselves.”

“Maybe if you’d enjoyed yourself less, you wouldn’t have ended up in an attic,” Lucy retorts, and Susan gasps.

“I was a _widow_! The whole point behind getting widowed is so you can finally have a good time! It’s _allowed,_ you tedious shrew!”

Cas tilts his head, perturbed, and Anna opens her mouth.

“I’m not a shrew!” Lucy cries indignantly, before either of them can comment.

“You’re right; you’re an old, bitter _hag_ in a young woman’s body!”

“Please don’t fight,” Max mumbles, shoulders drawn up as she fidgets with the end of her loose plait. “Can’t we all just have different ideas of fun? My littlest sister liked catching toads even though I think they’re disgusting, but we never fought about it.”

“She started it! She called me a _corset_!”

“Because you _are_! You’re so tight-laced it chokes the life out of everyone around you, too! And I _didn’t_ start it. You said I was bad with hair — and then you brought up the attic! _Speaking_ of which, I hardly had _any_ fun at all before she put me in there!” Susan’s head drops, mouth tight. “I hardly have any fun _now._ ”

Lucy slumps.

“What else do you expect, Susan? We’re girls. We’re not meant to be having fun all the time. We work, and we look after each other, and that’s that.”

“No, it’s _not_! We should be able to do both! Castiel should get the prince to do exciting things to him, and Max should rip open a boy’s shirt, one who’s her age and doesn’t smell like ale all the time, and _you_ should be so tired from playing with rabbits and crocheting tiny sweaters for them you don’t have the _energy_ to run around the halls at night fighting non-existent villains!”

Lucy looks torn.

“That — that wouldn’t be a very practical use of my time . . . though rabbits in _sweaters_. . .”

“Susan,” Anna starts gently, and Susan stiffens, turning.

“And _you_! I’m glad we’re changing the world, or at least trying, but you’re always tired and you’re always mad and you’re only ever fun when you forget to be grumpy about everything. How do you expect Castiel to be happy here when even _you_ aren’t?”

Anna shuts her mouth, eyes wide, and Susan takes a deep breath.

“We’re supposed to be fighting to have good lives, lives we _want_. But sometimes it feels like we’re really just — fighting to suffer less.” She looks down. “And that — that’s not fair.”

Anna’s quiet for a moment.

“These things don’t happen all at once,” she finally says, tired. “Sometimes, yes — you fight to suffer less before you even get a chance to fight for the good things. And sometimes you _can’t_ be happy, not when things haven’t really changed. But that doesn’t mean we won’t get there.”

“I don’t understand why we can’t do _both,_ ” Susan insists. “Alfie does. He’s fighting all the time to fix things, and he has plenty of fun, too.”

“Alfie is a man with a title and an inheritance waiting for him regardless of what happens here,” Anna says flatly. “Of course he has fun.”

Susan grimaces.

“You’re missing the point.”

Anna purses her lips.

“Fine. Maybe I am. Cas and I come from a place where ‘fun’ was barely in the lexicon, and certainly not for either one of us. All I know how to _do_ is be angry, and for good reason.”

“I don’t believe that. _Castiel_ says you made hats and played jokes and caused all kinds of havoc when you had the chance. So you know what? I think you’re perfectly capable of supporting your cause _and_ having fun, but you just choose _not_ to, and you try to discourage the rest of us from having any, either.”

Anna just stares, mouth tight.

For a moment, no one says nothing.

And then Max takes a deep breath, tentatively reaching out to touch Susan’s knee.

“I’m not sure why I’d rip open anyone’s shirt,” she says slowly, and inwardly, Cas breathes a sigh of relief; he _knew_ there was something wrong with that. “But I had a lot of fun tonight. Maybe we should _all_ go to the tavern, next time. Have — have you ever been, Anna?”

Anna swallows.

“A few times.”

“Well, you should come.”

Anna looks down.

“Maybe,” she mutters, and Max quickly nods.

“And — and maybe tonight, if the prince brought Castiel his blue dress, we can count the pearls on it. Don’t you think, Susan?”

Susan hesitates.

“Maybe. I thought you said there might be a thousand of them, though, and I — I might be a _tiny_ bit too drunk for that.”

“No, no,” Max says hastily. “We — we’ll lay thread down, to split it into sections. It’ll be easy. Did he bring it, Castiel?”

Cas slowly nods, though Anna’s expression is making him uneasy.

“He did.”

Max lights up.

“Can we see?”

Cas stands, heading for the armoire, though he takes care to bump his shoulder against Anna’s as he passes her, and she flinches. He tries to smile at her.

No, his sister isn’t as much fun as she used to be, but he’s not stupid enough to think she was ever happy in New Eden, and he also knows that happiness isn’t something you can force.

He doesn’t know _what_ will make Anna happy, but he suspects she doesn’t really, either.

“There’s a dirt mark on it,” he warns them. “I wasn’t careful getting down from the phaeton, after the Drive.”

“I’m sure it’s still beautiful,” Max assures him, then sighs. “I wish mine had been blue. Blue is the best.”

He smiles, carefully taking the garment bag off the hook.

“I agree. That’s why I chose it.” He goes to lay it on the bed, deftly undoing the buttons on the cover before gingerly pulling it free. Then he turns to face the others, the dress held out in front of him.

There’s a chorus of gasps, even from Anna, who quickly moves forward to get a better look at the front.

“Oh, my God,” she murmurs, all four of them staring with wide eyes. “That’s — Rebecca’s dress might as well have been a _sack._ ”

Cas can’t help but feel a flush of pride, though he’s not the one who made it.

“Put it on,” Susan says suddenly, finally looking back to Cas. “I saw some mean comics in the newsprints, but — they must have all heard about it secondhand. That’s not the same dress _at all_.”

“They’re real pearls,” Max adds, an awed whisper. “Every one of them. Can you imagine?”

“Your seamstress must’ve cried herself dry. Or gone mad,” Lucy murmurs, sounding a little breathless as she takes it in, and Cas shrugs.

“I don’t think that happened, but — I imagine it was an ordeal.”

His sister shakes her head, eyes still roving over the dress.

“She probably hired extra hands for this part. She’d be able to, working for the royal family. But God, Cas, it — it’s—"

“Perfect,” Cas supplies warmly, and four heads quickly bob in response.

“Where’s the dirt mark?” Anna asks with a frown. “We should try to get it out, if we can.”

He sobers a little, turning the back toward the light, searching, but-

“I don’t see it.”

Which, it was hardly small; it had been a phaeton wheel’s width, and at least a foot in length.

But even when he slowly turns the dress, searching, he can’t find it.

“He must have had it _cleaned_ for you,” Susan exclaims, and Cas’s heart sort of squeezes inside his chest, because yes, that would seem to be the case, and he’s not entirely sure how to the handle the feeling that knowledge provokes. “I want to see it on! And then I want to count the pearls!”

Anna promises to make sure no one looks while he changes — “What, do you think we’re going to _ogle_ him or something?” Susan asks, and Lucy adds darkly, “Not but what I don’t wonder about some of the girls in the kitchen sometimes. Susan just giggles and, confusingly, counters: “Fair, I’m not sure a couple of them wouldn’t fight to bring up his bathwater if they thought he’d invite them to _stay_ for it!” — and Cas, happily unaffected by mysterious red drinks from the tavern, makes short work of his buttons. The sleeves are a little tight, an unfortunate side effect of his current work, but he gets into it easily enough.

It’s not _quite_ like the first time, giddiness and high hopes eclipsing nearly everything else, but — it’s still remarkable. and he clears his throat when he’s carefully arranged the skirts, nervously awaiting judgment.

The four of them turn.

And then there’s a string of loud gasps, Max’s hands going to her mouth.

“You’re _beautiful_ ,” she whispers.

Cas tries not to smile, spreading his arms and turning a little.

“It’s a beautiful dress.”

“But it’s perfect on you,” Anna points out, blinking at him.

“It doesn’t look nearly as odd as I expected,” Lucy adds, but in such an admiring tone of voice Cas isn’t even offended.

This, he decides, is much, much better than the Drive.

“Dean said he thought I looked beautiful in it,” Cas offers, not sure how that information benefits them, but finding himself wanting to share it nonetheless.

“Because you _do,_ ” Susan says, incredulous. “I’m surprised you even made it to the phaeton.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean your dress should have got a lot more than _dirt_ on it,” she insists, and Anna puts her face in her hands.

“Susan.”

“What? Look at him! It’s hard to believe the prince didn’t have his skirts thrown over his head before they so much as left the—"

“ _Susan._ ”

Susan huffs, Max smothering a giggle into her sleeve beside her.

Anna just sighs.

“Cas, take off your dress so we can count the pearls and go to bed. You three—" She narrows her eyes. “Drink your tea.”

“No fun,” Susan mutters under her breath, but obligingly reaches for a cup, and Cas sees his sister hide a smile in her hands.

He decides that _actually —_ he’s having quite a bit of fun, indeed.

Dean goes back to Bobby’s for a nap after spending breakfast snuggled up with Cas on the terrace, and around ten, he makes his way to Mills Park to talk to Anna.

“Cas is at work,” she informs him, squinting, and Dean nods.

“Yeah. I was hoping to talk to you.”

Her mouth flattens.

“Believe it or not, I don’t make decisions for him. Whatever you’re after—"

“It’s not about Cas,” he says hastily. “Sorry. I should have asked about meeting with you last night, but I — uh. I got distracted.”

Anna gives him an unimpressed look, and he clears his throat, deciding it’s probably best to just get to the point.

“It’s about Mills Park. The council saw Cas’s interview.”

Anna stiffens.

“And?”

“And I’m here to — research, I guess, so we can use it as a model for other places.”

She blinks.

“I — excuse me?”

Dean shrugs.

“It’s one place, in one of the southernmost cities in the kingdom. It’s not exactly accessible.”

She’s silent for a minute.

“So — you — their response is to provide _more_ safe havens?”

He raises his brows.

“Is that a problem?”

“No, but it’s — they took him from his _home,_ for you to—" she cuts off, brow furrowing. “And then they put you in the dungeon for letting him go.”

“I — okay, yeah, but — it’s not like that first thing was their _idea,_ ” Dean protests. “It’s just — it was just tradition. And once they realized it was pointless, they stopped.”

She makes a face like he just waved a two-week old fish in front of it.

“Right. And your dungeon stay?”

“Uh, disobedience. I’m not really supposed to make those kinds of decisions on my own.”

She says nothing, studying him.

And then:

“I don’t believe it.”

He furrows his brow.

“What, people aren’t allowed to change?”

“No,” she says bluntly. “The ignorant are educated, the evil are ousted, and _society_ changes. But people don’t. And I don’t believe your council did.”

Dean’s not totally sure what to say to that, but Anna shakes her head, eyes shrewd, and continues.

“I thought it would take more than that. I knew I’d have better luck with moral pressure, in light of how you handled his escape, but — this is too much, and too soon.” She turns her attention back to him. “What did they say, exactly? How did they decide?”

Dean hesitates.

“Honestly? They were pissed. The council head, especially. She didn’t appreciate either the interview or the statements.”

“I didn’t expect anyone to,” Anna returns flatly, crossing her arms. “I expected them to get used to the idea that we’re prepared to fight for this, whether we’re nice about it or not.”

Dean snorts.

“I think they got that.”

She studies him for a moment.

“Do they think this will suffice?” she suddenly demands. “That I’ll — shut up, if they fund a few more places like this? Because helping us get back on our feet isn’t the problem; the problem is how we’re getting knocked off in the first place.”

“Well, that’s one of the things I’m here to talk about,” Dean says hastily. “If you want them to look at the laws on the books, we have to give them a reason. The capital has census data, and we sent out to the town councils for information about violations and related incidents, but most of your residents are here because there wasn’t anything they could do, right? Either because whatever happened was legal, or because no one would do anything even if it wasn’t.”

“Yes,” she confirms slowly, and he nods.

“So . . . we need to know what happened. What’s probably happening, at any given point in time. _Where_ it’s happening, and how.”

She frowns.

“You want their stories.”

“You can get their permission, first. And it’d help if you could tell us about past residents, too, especially if you know what they’re doing now. For today, if you could give me an overview, that’d be great. I’m gonna talk with Alex some more, although Jody was able to give me some of the financials, and see how things are actually run, but as far as what you talked about in the newsprints and everything else you distributed — you’re going to have to give us details, and I’m going to have to put it together and go home and make a case for it.”

“You.” She looks unhappy. “No offense, but I don’t trust you to speak for us.”

“Well, then make sure you tell me exactly what to say.”

She’s quiet for another moment, and then she takes a deep breath.

“I’ll ask about stories. As far as women who’ve already left — that will be difficult.”

Dean nods.

“Keep in mind, I don’t need names.” Tara might bitch about ‘verification,’ but Dean’s pretty sure no one wants to follow every little thread to prove the details when it’s the bigger picture that matters. “The king knows about Billie, since her story’s apparently recognizable, so people can kind of use their judgment if they think that’s the case for them, too, but otherwise — we just want to know what’s going on, that makes a place like this necessary, and where to put the effort to fix it. And in the meantime — I’m not wrong, right? Mills Park doesn’t cut it.”

“No. It doesn’t. It’s too far South, and I’d say the majority of women who end up here are still from the North. Alex and Bel-Miss Talbot travel, looking for people who need help, but for the most part . . . it’s not feasible. We’re not accessible to a lot of the women who need us, and the further North you get, the further backwards you go. More and more, we find people trying to circumvent your laws. Even if someone’s ready to leave — traveling that far with a stranger is a difficult thing to ask of them.”

“Yeah. I get that.” He hesitates. “Can I ask — it doesn’t seem like there are kids, here.”

Anna sighs.

“No. It’s not that there haven’t ever been, but — if you think talking a single woman into getting out is difficult, try a woman with children. And honestly, it’s easier for us that way. As it is, we’ve had a couple problems with mates and spouses, but the dockworkers will come patrol where needed and so far, we’ve dealt with it. But with kids . . . men might not like it when their wives or their daughters run off, but when you take their heirs?” She shakes her head, and Dean thinks of George with a grimace (as is always the case when he thinks of George). “Even if they don’t care, they’ll try to keep them as a way to punish you. And ideally, we’d be able to offer some legal protection, and we’d have housing suited to families, but we can’t, and Mills Park isn’t. So if you’re serious about establishing other houses like this . . . I’d advise you to keep that in mind.”

Dean nods.

“Okay. What else?”

Anna considers him for a long moment.

And then she stands, walking to an escritoire and retrieving a notepad and pen.

“You should take notes,” she tells him.

By the time the morning’s bled into afternoon, Cas’s return no more than a couple hours away, Dean’s hand is cramping and covered in ink.

Clearly, he’s got work to do.

But he thinks, even if it didn’t bring him back to Cas . . .

He’s looking forward to doing it.

Mr. Dryer excuses him a little early, eyes knowing in a way Cas can’t be bothered to feel uneasy over, and he wastes no time getting home, eager to join Dean for baths and dinner and conversation and — hopefully — a reasonable amount of shirtless kissing before someone comes to ruin it.

Thus, he’s incredibly disappointed to arrive home and find Dean nowhere in sight.

“He went back to the Singer estate,” Anna informs him, idling in the parlor and looking very thoughtful. Cas would ask, normally, but he’s preoccupied with feeling somewhat betrayed.

“What? Why? We’re supposed to spend the evening together.”

She shrugs.

“And I’m sure you will. He just said it was an errand — though he wanted you to go ahead and take your bath.”

Cas’s frustration mounts.

This is in direct violation of their negotiations at the end of Dean’s last visit; he’s _sure_ of it.

Dean will make a _terrible_ king if he can’t even maintain a simple agreement the first time it’s tested.

“You know,” she starts, clearly oblivious to his upset. “You’re just as effective as I was hoping you’d be. But not in the way I thought.”

Cas tilts his head, scowling, and she sighs, reaching out to smooth his hair.

“I’m sorry, Cas.”

“For what?”

Anna just gives him a sad look, patting his head and withdrawing.

“He’s an idiot, but — he might make Winchester a halfway decent king.”

Cas squints.

“Why would you be sorry for that?”

She just shakes her head.

“He should be back soon. I’d hurry with your bath, if I were you.”

Immediately, Cas pushes aside his confusion, shoulders slumping.

“He’s supposed to be here for it. Which — he’s going to make a poor king if he breaks his promises so easily.”

Anna lifts a brow.

“Promises?”

“We very clearly negotiated for him to watch me bathe during his visits,” Cas complains, and Anna’s mouth falls open.”

“You _negotiated_ that?”

“Yes,” he grits out. “We discussed our expectations before he left last time — in detail — and I _thought_ we were in accord.” He shakes his head, grim. “Apparently not.”

“Right. Well. Maybe he has a good reason today.”

Cas just gives her a sour look.

“He’d better,” he mutters, and then nods at her before striding from the room.

He might as well hurry; after, all nothing _interesting_ will be happening.

Dean is waiting downstairs when he’s finished, at least, though Cas’s short, isolated soak in the tub, so much different than what he’d imagined, has him in a less-than-friendly mood.

It’s very strange; Cas had resolved to just be grateful for what he was receiving, especially since it was well in excess of his original expectations, and yet, having been disappointed on this front — he has the unreasonable feeling that Dean should somehow make it up to him.

“Hello, Dean,” he manages civilly, because he is perfectly capable of suppressing his unnatural pettiness, and Dean looks taken aback.

He doesn’t answer for a moment, studying Cas with a furrowed brow.

And then he smiles.

“Hey, Cas. How was your bath?”

Cas lifts a shoulder, irritation returning with a vengeance. Fond of Dean’s smiles though he is, there’s something somehow _obnoxious_ about this one.

“Fine. And you? How was . . . whatever it was you were doing?”

Dean’s smile just grows.

Cas’s annoyance does the same.

But then Dean turns around, reaching for something on the bench-

And holds out a _basket._

Cas stills, upset fading as he fixes Dean with a questioning look. Green eyes twinkle back.

“The, uh, the sun sets pretty early now, and we’re coming up on Winter. I figured we should head out as soon as we can.”

“And . . . there’s food in there,” Cas clarifies, just to be sure, and Dean laughs.

“Yeah, Cas. I had the kitchens at Bobby’s make it up. Thought we could find a nice spot by the river.”

“Oh.” Cas nods slowly. “Alright. That sounds . . . reasonable.”

Technically, picnics were _also_ addressed during negotiations, and Cas agreed to them. He does see how, in this instance, both were not possible.

Dean shifts the basket to his left hand, then, reaching out with his right and tucking a finger in the top of Cas’s navy waistcoat, tugging him forward. Curious, Cas goes, and is rewarded with a kiss for his efforts.

“You’re making me really sad I missed the bath, Cas,” Dean mumbles, lips warm against his, and any remaining ire fades completely.

“Good,” he says distractedly, and Dean huffs and kisses him for a few moments more before he abruptly pulls away.

“C’mon, man. You spent all day hauling shit around, you’ve gotta be starving.”

There’s an ache in Cas’s stomach, instincts screaming out for satisfaction of _some_ kind, but despite spending the day ‘hauling shit around’ —

It doesn’t quite feel like hunger.

Still, he tucks his hand in the one Dean reluctantly pulls away from his waistcoat, and together, they head down to the river.

They eat, and the sun begins to sink, gold and heavy as the river beneath it takes on an answering glow. Dean tells him a little more about what he’s been up to in Lawrence, relaying his talks with Anna and Alex today, and Cas eats at an unhurried pace, largely content to watch him.

It feels a lot like it did at the castle, albeit with slightly different scenery, and traces of early winter teasing at the air.

“Mostly, I’m not sure how to bring it up,” Dean admits, at least half his dinner still on his plate while Cas is nearly finished. “George is always a dick, so he’s going to fight it; Tara hates me on principle, and she doesn’t have kids, so she’s going to want to shove it aside; Now, Gordon is practically Uncle of the Year and we just try not to talk about the whole decapitated brother-in-law thing, and Bobby’s obviously gonna go for it, so the two of them can probably herd some of the others to at least listen; but then, even if you get a majority council vote, anything you put on the books before people are actually ready for it might just come back to bite you in the ass.”

“What do you mean?”

Dean rubs his forehead, grimacing.

“Like, ‘don’t beat your wives’ is a pretty good talking point, a lot of guys who don’t beat their wives’ll be happy to throw themselves behind that, but even if the change you’re making is ‘if you’re shitty, you lose privileges,’ sometimes people who aren’t shitty still feel threatened by it. You get a . . .” Dean waves a hand. “’Well, now _that’s_ going a little too far’ response. It’s stupid, but they get nervous that what we’re actually doing is making it so they lose out even if they _haven’t_ done anything wrong.”

“So . . . if you propose that there are ever grounds where a father isn’t entitled to his children, men it shouldn’t affect will be afraid, anyway.”

Dean nods.

“Pretty much. The council coming to an agreement is one thing, but whatever you do, if the majority of the _people_ aren’t on board . . . you might just end up with towns and territories that decide they’re gonna ignore us completely. And sure, you can bring the army down and remind them what law they answer to, but if you start having to use force on your civilians on any kind of large scale — well, it means you fucked up somewhere.”

Cas nods.

“Then you need the people’s support as well as the council’s, if you mean to provide protection for women with children.”

“Yeah. And it’s not that there isn’t any, but right now, what’s on the books says whatever offenses you commit against your wife are separate from your rights where your kids are concerned. But that’s kinda backwards. And it’s all tied up in property and inheritance issues, and it’s just—" Dean shakes his head. “It’s a fucking minefield, which means even the councilmembers who sympathize still aren’t gonna wanna touch it.”

“Well.” Cas hesitates. He knows nothing about these things, is generally too tired to think about them at all, beyond what Anna tells him, but . . . “Anna’s thought about traveling, to give her talks. And supposedly, the circulation of the prints has been reasonably successful. Perhaps — if you approach it from both angles, you might be able to prepare the people to be more receptive, as well.”

Dean smiles slightly, though he looks troubled.

“We can at least try.” He sighs. “I should have asked her about what exactly she’s doing with the prints.”

“You still can,” Cas points out. “We could talk to her tomorrow.”

“’We?’” Dean echoes, curious, and Cas shrugs.

“If you don’t mind. I doubt I’ll have any input, but — we meant to spend the day together, anyway.”

Dean’s expression smoothes out.

“We did, didn’t we?” His smile grows, eyes looking between Cas’s. “If you do have input, though — share. I’m literally here to receive input. Officially, anyway.”

Cas lifts a shoulder.

“Alright. I don’t expect to, but — I’ll let you know.” He sets aside his now-empty plate, nodding at the rest of Dean’s food. “We can discuss it more tomorrow. You should eat.”

Dean follows Cas’s gaze, looking surprised to see the food still there.

“Huh. Can’t believe you finished and I didn’t.”

“There’s still time,” Cas points out, amused, and Dean huffs, spearing a potato.

“Is there? Gettin’ colder than I expected.”

“Because you talked instead of eating,” Cas reminds him, but quickly scoots closer, lining himself up with Dean and leaning in.

Dean gives him a sidelong glance, chewing thoughtfully.

“Cas,” he says, once he’s swallowed. “You’re making me wanna take my time.”

Cas tilts his head, resting it on Dean’s shoulder slightly, just to extend the reach of their shared warmth.

“Go ahead. The sun isn’t set yet.”

Dean just shakes his head and keeps eating, though his smile doesn’t disappear. Cas watches him for a moment, then sighs.

“Anna thinks you might make a good king.”

Dean lifts his brows.

“Fee shved da?”

Cas frowns at him.

“Technically, she said ‘halfway decent,’ but I believe that’s what she meant.”

“Huh.” Dean finishes the bite, clearing his throat. “She told me I was an idiot.”

“Occasionally,” Cas agrees, tucking an arm through Dean’s. It _is_ getting colder. “But generally speaking — you’re very bright. And . . . you try to listen. You try, period.” Cas sighs, turning his face into Dean’s arm a little. “I’d have been grateful to have someone like you head the council in New Eden, certainly.”

Dean makes a disgusted noise.

“Jesus, even Tara would have been better than whatever assholes thought sacrificial offerings were no big deal,” he mutters, predictably ignoring the rest of the sentiment, but Cas thinks his cheeks look a little red in the fading light and, more importantly, he smells _happy —_ assuming Cas is correctly identifying that.

And perhaps Cas is reading too much into all of it, but — he thinks Dean is pleased by _his_ approval, in particular.

“Dean,” he starts, quiet as he watches him. “Did you have my dress cleaned?”

Dean’s on his last bite, now, but he turns slightly, raising a brow at Cas.

“Yeah?” he says once he’s finished, setting aside his plate. “You said you wanted it, so I assumed you wanted it in good condition. Kate took it to Pamela to figure out how to get the dirt off.”

Cas nods slowly.

“I didn’t expect you to look at it.” He hadn’t actually thought about it, but if he had, he would have assumed Dean would locate the garment bag and just throw it in the carriage to take with him.

Dean looks down.

“I wouldn’t have, but — I remembered. When you got out of the phaeton.”

“Oh.”

Dean clears his throat.

“I, uh. I thought you might have already gotten it cleaned, but since you hadn’t . . .”

“No. I wasn’t sure how. And — I wasn’t going to wear it again, so it — I didn’t see much point.”

“Ah.”

“It made me very happy when I saw that you did, though. I ended up showing it to Anna, and some others.”

Dean finally looks at him, a little tense.

“Yeah? How’d that go?”

It takes Cas a moment to understand that what he’s seeing is _worry,_ and what’s putting it there.

“It went well. Very well.” He takes a deep breath. “Thank you for bringing it, Dean.”

“Of course, man. It’s yours.”

Cas nods.

“Are you finished eating?” he asks politely, and Dean glances at his empty plate, reluctance in his face.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I guess we should pack up.”

Cas patiently helps him put away the food and secure their plates inside the basket, but when Dean makes a move to stand, he puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

Dean immediately settles, smiling.

“What’s up? You wanna finish watching the sun set?”

Cas studies him for a moment, Dean’s eyes warm and golden as they look back, turning vaguely curious as the seconds pass.

“Not really,” Cas says eventually, then reaches out, lightly touching Dean’s thigh. “May I sit here?”

Dean’s expression slackens.

“Uh. Yeah, sure.” He blinks. “Any time.”

Pleased by this response, Cas carefully crawls into Dean’s lap, gratified when Dean immediately reaches for his hips to steady him, and by the warmth to be found there.

He touches Dean’s cheek, tracing the plane of freckles with something like reverence.

“Anna was right, though,” he says softly. “I will be honored to one day call you my king.”

Dean swallows, cheek twitching beneath Cas’s hand, and after a beat, he tries a smile.

“What, you’re not honored to call me your prince?”

Cas smiles back.

“I am. Mostly, though — I’m honored to call you my friend.” Cas pauses, then adds, “My best friend.”

And before Dean can argue, because Dean always argues with good opinions of him, though Cas imagines anyone who knows him must have many—

Cas leans in and kisses him.

Cas forgets about the cold rather quickly, Dean’s chilled nose turning warm against his as they brush together, his mouth an even more welcome respite from the dropping temperature around them. With his eyes shut and Dean’s lips pressed to his, chest solid and warm where it pushes flush against Cas’s, time starts and ends with Dean and the sun could have long been overtaken by moon and stars for all that Cas would be able to tell you.

It’s incredible, he thinks, breathlessly sliding his hands away from Dean’s shoulders, slipping them into the warm pocket their bodies make. Rather than becoming accustomed to kissing Dean, the act just seems to grow more thrilling, more consuming every time.

He clumsily picks at Dean’s buttons, but all his coordination is reserved for his mouth, and like last time, he ultimately decides to just pull Dean’s shirt free of his trousers, fingers eagerly delving underneath to the irresistible bare skin it hides.

Dean yelps, jerking back.

“ _Jesus_ , Cas!” he gasps, stomach flinching under Cas’s touch. “Hands!”

Cas stares at him, breathless and confused.

“I — am I not allowed?”

Perhaps it’s not the _best_ part of kissing, but the pleasure of the rest of it increases considerably the more places on Dean’s body Cas is able to feel.

It seems unfair somehow, to be denied that.

To his surprise, Dean laughs.

“Not when we’re out after dinner in _November._ Your hands are freezing.”

“Oh.” Cas hadn’t thought of that, although perhaps it is partly what prompted him to make the move. “Sorry.”

Dean licks his lips.

“Are you gonna move them?”

Cas hesitates.

“I . . . I think they’ll be warm shortly, if you let me keep them there.”

There’s a brief, incredulous look at that, but then Dean’s laughing again and leaning in, mouth covering Cas’s once more, and Cas immediately melts into it, flattening his cold hands against Dean’s stomach and feeling somehow triumphant when Dean fails to protest.

“Cas,” he murmurs, pulling back slightly, and Cas gives a distracted nod, chasing his lips. “Just — for the record — you’re allowed. You’re always allowed. If there’s a reason you’re not, I’ll tell you, but if I don’t — just assume that if you wanna touch me, you get to.”

There’s a fierce, peculiar heat that seems to spark through him at that, the muscles in his body pulling taut with the force of his reaction as he shudders, and he presses forward with renewed determination, unsure how else to satisfy the feeling churning in his gut right now. Dean just groans and pushes back, squeezing his hips, and suddenly the cold is forgotten and Cas’s world narrows down to Dean’s mouth, soft against his own, and Dean’s skin, hot beneath his hands, and if it _is_ possible to get tired of this, to somehow become desensitized to the wealth of sensation and pleasure and — and _joy_ that comes with it, then Cas hopes it doesn’t happen for a long, long time.

***

Of course, since it _hasn’t_ happened yet, is still so intense as to nearly overwhelm completely—

Cas can’t control it. He feels himself start to harden in his pants, and try as he might to bow his spine, to hold his hips back, to keep his body’s reaction from spoiling either one of their enjoyment, he _is_ enjoying himself. Dean’s thighs are firm and warm between his own and his grip is tight on Cas’s hips and every time Cas thinks himself safely positioned, he loses himself in Dean’s kisses and forgets all over again.

And this time, when he forgets, Dean’s tongue thrusting wetly alongside his own, one hand off his hip to hold Cas’s jaw, thumb stroking in an encouragement to stay open for him, Cas’s head angled just so—

Cas moans, arching, his groin pressing into Dean’s thigh, and a blinding shock of heat shudders through him, the friction an impossible combination of relief and pleasure, so surprising and _good_ that Cas instinctively rolls his hips, desperate to feel it again.

Dean’s breath hitches, mouth stilling, body going stiff, and just like that, Cas remembers himself.

It’s as if all the cold air gathering along the riverbank rushes right into his body, and he quickly pulls away.

“Sorry,” he pants, ashamed. “Sorry, I — it — it’s my dysfunction, I didn’t mean to—"

He moves to scramble off of Dean’s lap as he speaks, this particular bout of kissing clearly having reached its end, but Dean holds him, pulling him back into place.

Cas flinches as Dean’s leg presses up against his groin again, holding his breath.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, at a loss, and to his dismay, Dean frowns, eyes troubled in the now dusky-blue light.

Cas aches, in a much less pleasant way than he did a moment ago.

“Cas,” Dean starts, and Cas braces himself, though for what, he isn’t sure. A recrimination, however gently delivered it might be; questions, possibly, though Cas is probably the last person who can answer them; perhaps even a discouragement from future kissing, though Cas wants to believe Dean wouldn’t be that cruel, at least not if Cas can promise to control himself. “What do you — when you say ‘dysfunction,’ what do you mean?”

Cas looks away, embarrassed.

“This,” he mumbles, ducking his chin, hoping Dean doesn’t actually expect him to say it outright. “You know. It — it happens, and it shouldn’t, but — I can’t stop it.”

There’s a long pause.

“What do you mean, it shouldn’t?”

Cas shuts his eyes, trying not to be resentful. He doubts Dean’s ever met anyone like him, so he can’t be expected to understand, but Cas’s dysfunction is as personal as it is shameful and the last thing he wants to do is discuss it with someone he — with _Dean._

Dean takes a deep breath.

“Cas. Will you look at me?”

“No,” Cas says honestly. “Unless we’re done speaking of this.” He hesitates. “We can go inside, now.”

Dean is quiet a moment.

“When you — when it gets like this, do you ever . . . keep going? And there’s a, uh, a thing, that happens at the end, if you do?”

Vague as he’s being, Cas is fairly certain he understands what Dean is alluding to, and even though he has nothing serious to fear from Dean . . .

His first instinct is to lie.

There’s a warm touch above his brow, and Cas flinches away for a moment before leaning back into it, Dean’s forehead lightly pressed to his.

He decides to tell the truth.

“Yes,” he mumbles. “I know — it’s because I — I have a ‘dick,’ Dean, but an omega shouldn’t be able to—"

“Does it feel good?” Dean interrupts quietly. “When you do that. When you get to the end.”

Cas hesitates.

“Its okay if it does,” Dean adds, and Cas swallows, nodding.

“Yes,” he whispers. “Yes, it — it feels very good. I know it shouldn’t, but—"

“Cas. It’s okay. That’s normal. Lots of people with, uh, with dicks like that feeling, but — other people don’t really matter, here.” Dean shifts, and then there’s a cool palm against Cas’s flushed cheek, comfort and relief both. “If you like something — if something makes your body feel good, and it doesn’t hurt you, then — that’s a good thing. That’s a gift. It’s okay.”

Dean moves again, pulling away, and to Cas’s surprise, he feels Dean’s lips next, soft against his own.

“And if you want to,” Dean murmurs. “If it feels good, and you’re okay with it — keep going. I want you to feel good, Cas.”

Cas shivers, heat unexpectedly sparking back to life in his gut.

He should say no. It’s not so much of a problem anymore, given Cas’s embarrassment at having been caught out, at admitting to this peculiar defect of his, but there’s something about the way Dean says that, the way he tells Cas he wants him to feel _good,_ the way he proceeds to resume kissing him, as if being confronted with such a thing hasn’t had any effect at all, hasn’t left him wanting distance before they do this again, that makes a part of Cas want—

“I shouldn’t,” he manages, a strained breath between kisses, and Dean pauses, fingers still lightly caressing Cas’s cheek.

“If you don’t want to, don’t,” Dean says. “But if you do — don’t feel bad about it. Don’t ever feel bad about it.”

Cas hesitates, unsure, and Dean’s other hand squeezes his hip.

“Definitely not with me,” he adds, kissing him again. “Never feel bad with me. You could have a tail and spikes and breathe fire all over my best jackets when we kissed and I’d still — I — I’d still — you’d still be my best friend, Cas.”

Cas’s chest experiences a tight, full sensation, like the whole thing is about to burst.

“A dragon,” he whispers. “You’re describing a dragon, Dean.”

He feels Dean grin.

“Yeah, well, I’d wanna do this with you, dragon or not. And I’d want you to feel good, whatever it took for that to happen.”

Cas takes a deep breath, and even though he shouldn’t, should be too afraid, should certainly be too _embarrassed —_ there’s curiosity and pure, simple _want_ alongside everything else, so he puts his arms around Dean, nodding.

“Can I try?” he asks quietly.

Dean returns the embrace, holding Cas close and tilting his head to plant a kiss on Cas’s neck, just below his ear.

The heat in Cas’s stomach flares.

“Of course, Cas. Just — let me —" Dean shifts, spreading his legs a little and guiding Cas so he’s mostly balanced on Dean’s right thigh, the top of it pressing more firmly against Cas’s groin. Cas involuntarily twitches in response, and Dean nods against his shoulder. “Okay, buddy. Do your thing.”

Cheeks hot, Cas hides his face in Dean’s neck, fingers tight in his coat, and then — he tentatively rolls his hips.

Dean’s arms tighten, a welcome distraction from the sensation of Dean’s thigh as Cas bears down against it, and Cas draws in a breath and does it again, then again, instinctively shifting a little so the next tiny motion forward brings more of them into contact.

There’s a low throb in his groin, a rapidly building heat as he feels himself drag against Dean, and he’s so preoccupied with it all that he doesn’t bother suppressing the quiet moan that escapes him.

Dean shudders.

“Good,” he whispers. “Good, Cas. Just like that.”

Cas simply nods against his shoulder, eyes shut tight, because it _is_ good, it’s very good, and since Dean doesn’t appear to have changed his mind about letting it happen, is somehow _encouraging_ him—

Cas starts rocking a little faster, desperately seeking the friction between them, breaths growing shorter and shorter as he gets it. There’s a wordless noise of approval from Dean, and then Cas feels a pair of lips against his neck, Dean’s mouth doing that wonderful thing it does, and he eagerly tips his head further to the side, because the combined sensation of Dean’s lips on his throat and Dean’s thigh against him has his stomach going tight and his heart pounding even harder than it was.

“Dean,” he whispers, and Dean simply parts his lips, lightly sucking the sensitive skin of Cas’s throat between them. Cas lets out a choked noise. “ _Dean_ —"

One of Dean’s hands begins rubbing soothing circles over his back, and Cas can’t help but arch in response to the pressure, sliding forward along Dean’s thigh as the mouth on his neck drags further down. He feels the muscle flex underneath him, Dean’s leg jerking up a little in response, and a white-hot pleasure dances down his spine as he cries out, breathless.

“Good,” Dean repeats, hot against his throat. “Good, Cas.”

Cas agrees. Cas was wrong, to hesitate in this, because right now, pressed flush to Dean, rocking against his thigh and having the unbearably sensitive skin of his neck spoiled with attention, Dean’s hands warm through his clothing and holding him close, a clear invitation to go on, it’s okay, it’s _okay_ —

Cas starts moving faster, rhythm like a sharp, vital instinct, and then one of Dean’s hands is in his hair and Cas’s stomach muscles are tensing and his blood is like thunder in his ears, or perhaps that’s just Dean’s breath, harsh and fast as he works his way across Cas’s skin, and they talked about this, they talked about following an erect penis to its shameful but nonetheless very good-feeling conclusion, but this is different, somehow, in a way Cas neither expected or could have imagined; and Cas _always_ feels out-of-control and off-kilter in this, but not the way he does now, his body starting to shake as he works, as Dean holds it, some violent, helpless feeling twisting through him as the finish approaches in a fashion wholly different than what he’s experienced prior—

And then there comes a moment, Cas burying soft sounds into Dean’s shoulder as he frantically grinds down, nearly sick with jitters, when Dean’s mouth dips even lower, settling right there at the juncture between neck and shoulder and sealing over _just_ the right spot, and then, for the first time, Cas feels the barest scrape of teeth, feels them press against his skin, and it’s like something just _snaps,_ tearing bright and hot throughout his whole body as it seizes up in Dean’s arms and the good feeling happens, but it’s not just a good feeling, it’s _more,_ it’s vast and unnameable and Dean’s mouth is still locked over his throat and Cas lets out a shocked sob, jerking against him as he clings tightly to Dean’s back, blinded by the sheer, unexpected power of it.

***

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, trembling in Dean’s arms, struggling to catch his breath as Dean gently strokes his back, but when he finally forces himself to open his eyes, unsteadily leaning back, he can barely still make out Dean’s face.

He can see his smile, though.

“Good?” Dean asks, and Cas nods, drawing in a deep breath, the space between his ribs a no man’s land of chaos and stumbling euphoria.

“That—" he starts, having trouble finding the words. “That’s different. Than — than when I’m in heat.”

Dean studies him, inscrutable in the dusk.

“Yeah? Is that okay?”

“Yes. Yes, it — when you’re in heat, you still — it’s a relief, but you — you ache, afterward. I feel . . . I just feel . . .”

Dean waits, watching him in the deep blue dark, and Cas suddenly wants to kiss him again.

“Good,” he says, a terrible understatement he hopes Dean will understand. “I feel good.”

Dean lights up, even in shadow, and then he’s rolling them and Cas barely has a moment to process the new sensations of grass and blanket soft beneath his back, Dean’s weight on top of him, before Dean’s hands are on his face and he’s being kissed, just like he wanted. Dean’s laughing, breathless, in a way that has a rush of humor bubbling out of Cas in return, and Cas doesn’t really understand, not why Dean encouraged him to do that or why Dean hasn’t done anything about the hardness Cas now feels against his own leg or why he seems to be _rewarding_ Cas with all these sweet, playful kisses on the blanket, but Cas is too content and grateful to care, body still humming with pleasure, and the last place on his neck Dean kissed practically seems to _sing_ with lingering sensation, and he feels lighter than he thinks he ever has, Dean’s scent and warmth surrounding him in a way that gives him an indescribable sense of well-being and — and — and _oh_ —

Cas thinks he never, ever wants to part from Dean again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> Discussions of Anal Sex: Lucy, Susan, and Max return from their night out and relay what they've learned. The conversation here is not meant to poke fun at anal sex in particular; I think a lot of kids’ reaction to sex ed can be kind of a blend of amusement and incredulity, and the same is true of adults encountering things they didn’t know about before, but there's nothing inherently amusing or ridiculous about anal sex relative to other types. (Though if this author is being perfectly honest, they have and always will find butts kind of funny. Sorry if my ten-year-old’s sense of humor ever offends.)
> 
> Implied/referenced racism: In recounting her conversation with the barkeep, Susan mentions a compliment paid to her eyes; Cas notes that due to criticisms made about 'evidence of foreign blood' by Susan's mother-in-law, she is now sensitive about this feature.
> 
> Sexual Content: Dean and Cas start kissing after their picnic dinner, Cas sitting in Dean’s lap, and Cas becomes erect. He attempts to conceal this so he can continue kissing Dean, but Dean notices, and Cas apologizes for his dysfunction, trying to move away. Dean effectively asks him if he ever sees his erections to orgasm, and when Cas admits that he does, Dean asks him if it feels good. Ashamed, Cas says it does, and Dean reassures him that it’s okay, and that if something non-harmful makes him feel good, it’s a gift. He then encourages Cas to continue riding his thigh, and with some trepidation, Cas agrees. He works himself to orgasm while Dean kisses his neck and touches his back.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: reference to the horse story, implied/referenced past murder and abuse (David and Adina), sexual content (marked with *** at the beginning and end and a summary in the notes if you want to skip), please let me know if I missed anything.

“Sorry, don’t mind me, I’m just, uh, gettin’ Cas some water.”

Despite this reassurance, the bustle of meal preparation in the kitchen fails to continue; every woman present seems to have stopped what she’s doing and is staring at Dean with an uncomfortable amount of interest.

“But your highness,” the woman in front of the tap finally starts, shifting the large pot in her arms thoughtfully. “I thought Castiel already had a bath.”

Dean coughs.

“He did. This isn’t — it’s not for a _bath,_ it’s just — we just need some water.”

She licks her lips.

“I’d think a pitcher’d be plenty, for whatever it was.”

Dean laughs awkwardly.

“Oh, well, you know, just in case.”

“Uh-huh. What _is_ it, actually?”

He hesitates, trying not to think too hard about the real answer to that question, or what led to it, and shrugs.

“A, uh, a bird flew over head, and kinda just . . . went to town on him. So he needs to get cleaned up and, you know. Try and get the stain out.”

To his left, another girl claps her hands.

“Oh, you should have said. I’m fantastic at getting stains out of things! I’d be happy to come up and help you.”

He tries not to visibly wince.

“Wow, that — that’s real sweet of you, but it’s not too bad, and I think we’ve got it covered.”

“Are you sure?” the first woman asks, smiling brightly. “I could come, too. No such thing as too many scrubbing hands.”

And yeah, he’s pretty sure they’d feel differently if they knew exactly _what_ they were scrubbing off of Cas’s trousers and his pretty, carnation pink drawers.

Which — Dean didn’t know about the drawers until they’d made it upstairs, Cas sitting on the edge of the bed with a grimace and casually opening his trousers to survey the damage, and he’s ashamed to say that the idea of Cas coming all over his delicate, frilly underthings nearly resurrected his post-picnic boner then and there.

(Still, he doubts the women in the kitchen will feel the same — although, sometimes Dean finds it hard to believe _none_ of them have noticed that Cas is, objectively speaking, a God among men.)

“Really, it’s okay. But I do appreciate it,” he adds, hoping his smile is more charming than nervous as he sort of nods at the tap. “I’ll just . . . fill these and head back up.”

She hums, stepping aside.

“That’s fair. I’d be in a hurry to get back, too, if I were you,” she adds kindly, then starts carrying her pot to the stove while the others exchange sly looks.

Dean decides to pretend he doesn’t see them.

Anyway, as soon as the buckets are full, he hastens toward the exit, nodding politely at the women he passes, and he’s _just_ cleared the last group of them when someone calls after him.

“By the way, your highness,” she says, and with an internal sigh, he plasters a smile on his face and turns.

“Yeah?”

“Did your picnic get rained on?”

“Uh. I . . . don’t think so?” Dean’s almost positive not, but Cas was riding his thigh and shuddering in his lap and letting Dean do a variety of blatantly indecent things to his neck, so for all Dean knows, it poured for a full ten minutes before God parted the clouds to deliver an important proclamation and then disappeared in a dramatic clap of thunder.

It couldn’t have been _too_ bad, though; their clothes were perfectly dry, with the exception of the obvious mess.

“Huh. That’s weird.” She tilts her head, giving him a speculative look. “Because you smell absolutely _drenched._ ”

As if on cue, everyone else in the kitchen bursts into giggles, and Dean—

Dean flushes hot, mumbles something about ‘wet river smell,’ and just barely avoids spilling the buckets in his hurry to leave.

Cas is down to his undershirt and pink drawers when Dean returns, and his face practically lights up when he sees Dean.

And Dean knows that he’s just excited about the buckets of water, because he has drying come in his drawers and he’s eager to get out of them and wash up, but Dean can’t help it. There’s a giddy loop of _I feel good_ running in his head, the phantom sense of Cas clinging to him as he came dancing over Dean’s skin, and he knows that doesn’t mean a lot, that that kind of thing _does_ feel good, that not feeling guilty over it feels even better, that it could have been a lot of other people besides Dean and Cas would still have figured out that maybe there was something to all of it, but . . .

Dean feels like he did something _right._ Something really, really right. He feels like the fact that Cas went ahead and did that means something, and he feels like the fact that he let Dean hold him and touch him while he gave that to himself means even more, and honestly, Dean’s never before felt so fucking _incredible_ about a sexual encounter, never mind one where he didn’t even get to finish.

He does, though. He looks at the smile in Cas’s eyes, the expectant look on his face, like there’s no doubt in his mind that Dean will provide, despite all the times Dean’s kind of proven he _wouldn’t_ —

And he feels like maybe God _did_ part the clouds and speak, and what he proclaimed was, ‘Dean Winchester, my blessed dumbass son, take this gift upon you and do not fucketh it up a second time.’

“Brought two, just in case,” he says in what he hopes is a normal, non-choked up voice, and Cas nods.

“I’m tempted to take a second bath.”

Dean smiles.

“I’m kinda scared of the dinner shift, but I’ll go for more water if you want me to.”

Cas studies him, considering, and then shakes his head.

“Tomorrow. For now, I’d like to just sit with you.” He stands, gesturing to the trunk Dean brought him last time. “Do you mind finding me a new pair of drawers?”

“Oh. Uh. Sure.” Dean shuffles to the trunk, unlatching it and carefully lifting the top piece of tissue paper. “Got a color preference?”

There’s a rustling behind Dean, and he resists the temptation to look; regardless of what happened out there by the river, he’s guessing these rules haven’t changed.

“What’s your favorite color?” Cas asks softly, and Dean hesitates, staring at the crisp white pair on top.

“Uh. Blue. I like blue.”

There’s a pause behind him, then a splash of water, and Dean silently reminds himself that he neither needs to see or participate in this, even if his instincts are urgently trying to tell him otherwise.

“You should get me a blue pair, then.”

Dean closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. As bad as he felt about last night (and this morning), he’s pretty sure he knows what he’s going to be doing when he gets back to Bobby’s after this.

“Okay. You want a fresh pair of pants?”

Another pause, and what Dean’s pretty sure is the sound of the wet cloth making contact with Cas’s skin.

“Will you get me a nightgown?”

Dean opens his eyes, uncomprehending.

“A nightgown?”

“If that’s alright. Nine is a long way off.” Cas hesitates. “You can borrow one, if you want.”

Dean smiles down at the pile, although there’s a flicker of guilt, because he’s already _been_ borrowing one, and it was Cas’s favorite.

Dean will give it back eventually; he’s just — he’s not ready yet.

(Maybe he should see if Pam can make a new one for Cas.)

“Nah. If I were spending the night, maybe, but I should be comfortable enough for a few hours.”

Cas is quiet for a moment, and then he sighs.

“Alright. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Dean can’t even begin to interpret his tone, so he just clears his throat, pulling a ruffled blue pair from the drawer stack before locating the nightgowns on the other side of the trunk.

His mouth goes dry when he recognizes the one right on top.

“Which, uh. Which one do you want?” he asks, and even if it’s wishful thinking, a part of him is hoping Cas _will_ say ‘the lacy blue one.’ Dean’s never worn sheer lace, so he can’t really speak to how comfortable it’d be to lounge in, but weren’t Cas and Pamela going on about how soft it was? Cas loves soft things — who the hell doesn’t — so really, that’s just the practical choice for hanging out with Dean on his bed in his bedroom, just the two of them.

And maybe Dean could ask to feel it, just so he’d know, for future reference, how soft it really was, and then he could tell Cas how beautiful he looked in it, because he knows Cas will, and then maybe Cas will give him that dark, intent look and settle in his lap to kiss him and then maybe—

Cas hums, another splash of water echoing faintly through the room.

“Any is fine. Just not the lacy blue one.”

Heart heavy with disappointment, Dean bypasses it and retrieves the next softest one he can find, a silky ivory gown with sheer puff sleeves and floral embroidery across the front. Fishing it out without disturbing the rest of the clothing is difficult, and a part of Dean wonders why Cas hasn’t unpacked the trunk yet, even though it’s been a month.

Of course, he did end up with a lot of clothing in Lawrence; his armoire’s probably not big enough.

There’s the light shuffle of footsteps, and a few moments later, Cas speaks.

“Alright. Will you put them at the foot of the bed?”

“Sure.” Dean’s careful to stay turned away as he sort of backs up and lays them out as instructed, and then he makes himself comfortable on the edge near the pillows, studying the wall while he listens to Cas get dressed.

It doesn’t take long before a shadow falls over the nightstand, and just as Dean turns, Cas settles on the bed right next to him, watching Dean with the barest of smiles, blue eyes warm from more than just the firelight glinting off of them.

“Thank you.”

Dean just sort of stares back like an idiot, Cas’s face way closer than expected, and exactly how much of a scoundrel would it make Dean if he kissed him again?

“Yeah. Sure. Anything.”

Cas tilts his head, dark hair still in appalling disarray from where it rubbed against the picnic blanket as Dean kissed him, silly with elation and some other full, overwhelming feeling he’s just not going to think too hard about, and it’s all Dean can do not to lurch forward.

“Did you . . .” Cas starts, then trails off, brow knitting. “Was there something you wanted?”

Oh, God; it’s obvious Dean wants to kiss him again, isn’t it? Of course it is. Dean’s smoothly lied his way out of many a tough spot in his lifetime, even when he was conscious of a fifty-fifty chance of his own survival should things go to hell, but as soon as Cas makes eye contact with him it’s as if all his higher cognitive function sputters out like an old blind horse with plague and suddenly he’s a transparent mess.

“No?” he tries, like Cas isn’t about six inches away, cheeks rosy and hair mussed and delicate sleeves a strangely thrilling combination with the tight, mouthwatering curve of his biceps; like the way that the growing shadow on his jaw traces that soft, pink mouth isn’t doing funny things to Dean’s insides and reminding him just how worked up he was when they finally started trudging back in the dark, stumbling up the hill toward the lights of Mills Park hand in hand and just hoping for the best. “Can’t, uh. Can’t think of anything.”

Cas nods, looking faintly puzzled.

“Alright.” He studies Dean for another moment, then reaches out, fingers gentle where they touch Dean’s cheek. “I . . . I’m glad you’re going to keep coming back.”

Dean swallows, transfixed by the way Cas is looking at him, eyes bright.

“Yeah. Me, too.” He’s allowed to kiss Cas again if Cas kisses him first, right? He honestly, genuinely didn’t come to Mills Park just to make out with Cas and have the privilege of showing him what a neat trick it is that his body’s capable of certain things, but if _Cas_ wants to spend more time on those things, since he never had the opportunity to do it before now, it would just be shitty of Dean to deny him, right? _Right_?

Cas lets out a breath, barely audible, and then lowers his hand.

“You should lean against the pillows. It’ll be more comfortable.”

“Oh. Sure. Thanks.”

Cas scoots back, making space for Dean to stretch out his legs, and the moment Dean’s settled back against the pillows, Cas lies down next to him and rolls over, resting his head on Dean’s shoulder.

Of course, Dean’s heart tries to make a break for it in about three different directions, thudding powerfully in defeat when it finds itself unable, and in one last act of desperation, his body decides to quickly throw an arm around Cas’s shoulders, just to try and mitigate the feeling.

Clearly oblivious, Cas tilts his chin up, taking a deep breath — a deep breath of _Dean’s_ scent, because there’s no other way to really interpret what he’s doing there — and then he sighs.

“I miss you very much when you’re away,” he whispers, and before Dean can figure out how to respond to that in a way that doesn’t involve hiding Cas under the blankets so Dean can spend the evening sniffing him and kissing him and putting his teeth places they don’t belong, Cas continues: “When your enforcers go to New Eden — there’s a young man. David, from the House of Whitley. I don’t think there’s a house like Mills Park for men, but — if you could find him a place elsewhere, away from New Eden . . . I think that would be — just.”

Dean takes a moment to answer, thrown by the sudden topic change and at a loss as to what brought it up.

“Yeah? What’s his deal?”

Cas is silent for a moment.

“He did something he shouldn’t, shortly after he presented,” he finally answers, quiet. “The, um. The girl he meant to mate — she didn’t survive her punishment. And though he did, he — he’s suffered ever since.”

Even if Dean were a callous bastard who didn’t care about young lovers meeting gruesome fates, it’s hard not to react to the sudden wave of _sadness_ twining through Cas’s scent, and he instinctively tightens his hold on him, trying to pull him closer.

“Yeah. Of course, Cas. I’ll tell them. What’s he do? That might help us figure out a place for him.”

Cas nods.

“He’s a stablehand now. He’s fond of horses. But — he was going to be a doctor, before.” Cas pauses. “Maybe he could be trained to treat horses? Like Mary?”

Dean’s confused for a split second before he remembers, and he coughs, suddenly guilty.

“Yeah. That, uh. That would have been nice, if someone could have saved her.”

Cas nods again.

“I think a lot of us deserve to be saved,” he murmurs, and then he turns his face into Dean’s shoulder a little more, breathing deep. “Thank you for saving me, Dean.”

Dean’s worries over a dead-horse lie he’s beginning to question the harmlessness of bleed away, and he closes his eyes, leaning his cheek against Cas’s hair.

“That’s not how it really happened,” he mumbles. “But whatever you wanna call what happened — thanks for holding on ‘til it did. I know — that takes a lot.”

Cas just shakes his head.

“Well worth it,” is all he says, and for a little while, they simply lie together, breathing in the quiet.

Cas wakes in a haze of Dean’s scent, body pleasantly heavy with the remnants of a deep, utterly relaxed sleep; which, that would normally be a good thing, but it quickly becomes apparent that what woke him was his sister’s knocking, voice calling a reminder through the door, and he fumbles upright in horror, searching out the clock.

It is, indeed, nine.

“I fell asleep,” he utters, stomach sinking. “I — I fell _asleep._ ”

There’s a hand, warm against his back through the nightgown.

“Yeah. You dropped off kinda quick, and you seemed pretty out of it, so I didn’t wanna wake you.”

Cas tries not to glower, because he understands this was a considerate response to him ruining their entire evening together, even if it was a response in direct opposition to Cas’s own wishes.

“I can sleep when you’re not here, though.”

Dean shrugs.

“It’s not like I’m leaving yet. Besides,” he adds, giving Cas a small smile, one that leaves Cas’s lungs a little confused about what their next course of action should be. “It was kinda nice? Napping with you, I mean.”

“Oh.”

“Think I dozed off, too, for a little while.”

Cas hesitates. Apart from his disappointment now, it was a very nice nap. He’s wished to sleep with Dean, before, and he supposes this counts, though the next swift knock on the door is somewhat at odds with how he envisioned the waking-up-together part.

“Cas.” Muffled by the door though she is, Anna sounds exasperated. “I know you think it’s a stupid rule, but if we bend it for his highness, we have to bend it for other callers, and it exists for a reason.”

Cas sighs, giving the door an unhappy look. Nice nap or not, he feels _cheated._

“We’ll be down shortly, Anna. I fell asleep.”

There’s a pause.

“Fifteen minutes,” she finally says. “I’m in the middle of a commission, so _please_ don’t make me come back up.”

“I won’t,” Cas assures her, though he privately acknowledges he may be lying, and as soon as he hears her footsteps retreat, he turns back to Dean. “We have fifteen minutes.”

Dean looks amused, for some reason.

“I heard.”

Cas hesitates, unsure how to phrase his next question.

“I . . . suppose we should say goodnight,” he finally settles on, and Dean just looks at him for a moment.

And then he bursts into laughter, cups Cas’s jaw with both hands, and kisses him.

Cas trudges back into the house after Dean’s driven away, the sting of disappointment over his unexpected nap soothed by the extra fifteen minutes of kissing — which _may_ have been more like twenty, or even thirty, if you count what happened at the door and while Dean was leaning halfway out of the carriage, but Anna stayed in the parlor the entire time so clearly, it doesn’t matter.

In any case, his sister is waiting in the hall when he returns.

“There’s a fresh pot of tea in the parlor, if you’re interested. And Susan and Max are working another puzzle.”

Cas, dismally well-rested, doesn’t spare the stairs a second glance.

“Did you have a nice evening?” she asks as he follows her into the parlor, and he gives her a sidelong look, curious about her tone.

“I did. Well, mostly. I fell asleep.”

She lifts a brow.

“Is that why you’re in your nightgown?”

He sighs.

“No, the nap was an accident. Since I had to change anyway, though, I wanted to be comfortable.”

“Oh? Why’d you have to change?” Susan interjects from the parlor table, tone even stranger than Anna’s, and Cas hesitates.

Dean said it was okay, but Dean also said his dresses were okay, and much as Cas takes heart in that, he knows to be cautious of the fact that others may hold different standards.

Besides. Thinking of what Dean let him do in the privacy of Cas’s own head makes his face feel hot; the idea of confessing it aloud is somewhat mortifying.

“I spilled part of dinner on it,” he eventually says, hovering by the settee, where Anna’s sewing is still sitting. Billie is lounging in the armchair by the window, a book in hand, though she spares him a brief, friendly nod.

“Well, now _that’s_ bizarre,” Susan says, idly pushing a puzzle piece in a circle around the table. “The dinner shift said a bird pooped on you.”

Cas blinks.

“They — what?”

“At least, that’s what his _highness_ told them.”

Cas suppresses a sigh.

He really wishes Dean wouldn’t lie about things without at least keeping _Cas_ apprised.

“Ah. Yes. Though — that was a minor offense. Food is much more difficult to clean.”

“Says the man who’s never had to scrape bird leavings off a carriage roof,” Susan scoffs, making a face, then shakes herself. “Anyway. Are you _sure_ there’s nothing you’d like to share?”

Cas looks back evenly.

“Yes.”

She narrows her eyes.

“Really. And that bottle we brought back for you? Am I supposed to believe it remains full?”

Cas lifts his brows, genuinely startled this time.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

She gives him a frustrated look.

“Well, I was hoping you’d tell _me._ ”

“Unless you’d like to hear about Dean’s study of Mills Park, I don’t really have anything to share.”

She squints at him for a moment, then huffs.

“Fine. Be that way. See if we ever give you seduction advice again.”

He tilts his head, though he starts toward the table, hoping they’ll still include him in the puzzle-working.

“I don’t remember you giving me seduction advice.”

“Yes, we did!” she protests, indignantly pushing out a chair for him to sit. “We went to the tavern, and we asked that nice gentleman behind the bar a bunch of questions, and then we came home and told you all about it.”

Cas sits, pausing to return Max’s small smile as she nudges a pile of pieces toward him.

“You told me about intimacy between men. Unless I’ve misunderstood what ‘seduction’ means, that’s not the same thing.”

Susan frowns.

“Didn’t we?” She looks at Max, perturbed. “We told him how to get the prince to bed him, right?”

Max bites her lip, glancing up.

“To be honest, I don’t really remember all of it. Maybe we didn’t?”

Susan groans, putting her hand to her head and scrunching it through her hair, which — Lucy was, in fact, wrong. Susan is perfectly capable of putting a tidy knot in her hair; her trouble begins with her ability not to fuss with it afterward.

“Fine. God, what did he say . . .” she mutters, brow furrowing. “I think that part came after the third red thing.”

“They were delicious,” Max sighs. “I tried my father’s whiskey once when I was younger, and it was _disgusting._ I didn’t know they made some spirits sweet.”

Cas gives her an interested look.

“They do?”

Max nods, looking at the puzzle thoughtfully.

“It was like — drinking the juice from a bowl of pitted cherries. Well, if cherries had a very faint, tiny aftertaste of shoe polish.”

Cas makes a face.

“That . . . doesn’t sound delicious.”

She shrugs.

“It was, though. You can try it, next time.”

“ _Anyway,_ ” Susan interrupts firmly. “We were talking about seduction.”

“We were.” Cas hesitates. “I don’t know that I want to seduce him, though. Not if he’s going to put his entire hand inside of me.”

There’s a choked noise from by the window, and Cas glances over to find Billie’s brows well above her reading glasses, though she’s not looking at them.

“Wait,” Susan says, leaning forward. “Does that mean you _haven’t_ seduced him yet?”

“No?”

“But they said he came in smelling like a cake left out in a spring shower!”

Cas looks back at her, uncomprehending.

“What?”

She sighs, shoulders slumping.

“Damn it. You’re right. We must have skipped the seduction part.” She shakes her head. “Though it seemed to me like you’d already _done_ a lot of it.”

“I have?” he asks, startled, and she nods vigorously.

“Well, yes! The barkeep said to tease him with your body, and you let him watch you _bathe._ ”

Cas blinks.

“Tease him with my _body_? How?”

“By showing it to him! If he’s attracted to you, it makes him want to look more closely and touch it and all the _other_ exciting things. At least, that's how it usually works with men and women.” She clicks two pieces together, then gives him a serious look. “You can also try wearing things you can see your shape or your skin through. Have you got anything like that?”

Cas thinks of his blue nightgown, and quickly shakes his head.

“No. And if I wanted to entice Dean, I don’t think my body is the way to do it.”

Though he’s not sure what other way he’d do it, either.

She looks appalled.

“Of _course_ it’s the way to do it! Anyway, the barkeep says if he’s an alpha, you can bare for him, though everybody knows that.”

Cas eyes her with interest, because he did not, in fact, know that.

“My neck?” he clarifies, and she nods.

“I mean, yes, but still — try baring all the other things, just to see.”

Anna snorts from the settee, though Cas disregards it.

“And this supposedly makes him — desire me?”

“Of _course_ it does! It’s like — wearing a big sign around your neck that says, ‘come and get me, alpha!’”

“Oh.” Cas mulls this over, halfheartedly inspecting his pieces. “I don’t think it works. All Dean does when I bare for him is kiss my neck.”

Susan chokes.

“All he does is — _all_ he does—" For some reason, she smacks his shoulder, scowling. “Are you _kidding_ me?”

“No? I’m serious. He doesn’t try to do anything else.”

“Well, what do _you_ do? Maybe he thinks you don’t want him to!"

“If it involves his whole hand, I’m not sure I do,” Cas admits, but more importantly— “Anyway, Dean knows I’m amenable, but even tonight, he told me he doesn’t want anything.”

If anything, Susan just looks _more_ disapproving.

“ _Really_. He said that?”

“He did.” Cas shrugs. “Dean’s . . . a very peculiar alpha. A peculiar person, honestly. He’s remarkably generous, but he rarely asks anything for himself.”

Susan’s scowl disappears, eyes going wide.

“Ohhh,” she breathes. “That is weird for an alpha, but — don’t you get what it means?”

Cas blinks.

“No?”

“It doesn’t mean he doesn’t _want_ things, Castiel! He’s just waiting for you to figure out what they are and be the one to finally give them to him!”

“Actually, that’s what ‘words’ are for,” Anna calls tiredly. “And if he wants things, he should learn to use them.”

Susan waves her off.

“No, no, no. I understand everything, now. And it makes _perfect_ sense. He’s a prince, so he’s spent his entire life fulfilling his duties and preparing to be a king who takes care of his people. Of course, he knows that if he asks, everyone is bound to give him what he wants, and he’d never want to take advantage of his position, so he’s spent years denying himself happiness because he’s afraid of doing the wrong thing. And now that he’s found you, his desperation for you grows with each passing day, _consuming_ him, and it takes every ounce of self-control not to just throw you on the bed and ravish you, but he’s waiting until he can be absolutely sure you love him and want him as he is, like his crown doesn’t even exist!”

Max giggles.

“I think I read that one.”

Susan winks at her.

“I think I read five of them.”

“I think you both read too _many_ ,” Anna adds, but Susan just sits back in her chair, lacing her fingers over her stomach.

“Which means my barkeep was right, because he said the thing that will drive a man the _most_ wild—"

“I don’t really want Dean _wil—"_

“Is to flat-out _tell_ him that you want him.”

Max nods, looking incredibly entertained.

“He even showed us, Castiel. He batted his lashes and everything and said—" She lifts her chin, letting her eyes fall half-shut as she holds up a hand and crooks her finger, voice comically hoarse when she speaks next. “’Life is short, but my desire for you is endless. Now take me.’” She pauses, expression turning thoughtful. “Except he said you should be naked for it.”

“Cas, if you ever say that, or anything like it, you’re not my brother anymore,” Anna warns, and Susan snickers.

“How would you ever know? I think he should try it in the morning. It’s your day off, isn’t it, Castiel?”

“Yes, but Dean wanted to talk to Anna some more.”

“Sure, but he can’t talk to her all _day._ Oh — _I_ know! You should excuse yourself early and be waiting for him!”

“But — if he’s said he doesn’t want that, isn’t it possible he meant it?”

“But it’s _also_ possible he _didn’t._ ”

“And it’s even more possible that we shouldn’t reward that kind of behavior by trying to guess at people’s motives instead of just listening to what they actually _say_.”

Susan makes an annoyed sound, though she looks amused.

“You have no sense of romance, Anna.”

“I really don’t,” Anna agrees. “But I do have a sense of bedtime, and since the rest of us didn’t get a nap, I suggest we go to sleep.

There’s surprisingly little protest, and they all leave the parlor together, though Max slows on their way out, stepping close to Cas and reaching out to lightly grip the side of his nightgown. He gives her a curious look, but there’s a nervous, determined set to her expression, and her focus appears to be on Billie.

“Miss Esprit?” she says, and Billie pauses in the doorway, turning slightly.

“You can call me Billie, Max.”

Max quickly nods.

“Thank you.” She hesitates, hold on the fabric tightening. “Billie, then. I was — I was wondering, about some of your books.”

Billie lifts a brow.

“Alright. What were you wondering?”

Max swallows.

“The ones that seem to be mostly illustrations, even though they’re as big as regular novels — I’ve never read one like that.”

“You should, then. They were a very popular choice when I ran a bookshop.”

Max bobs her head.

“Yes. Would it be alright — may I please borrow one? If I’m careful with it?”

Billie’s mouth ticks up at one corner, and after a moment, she holds out the one in her hand.

“Well — if you’re careful with them, I suppose you can borrow as many as you’d like.”

At last, Max relaxes, grip on Cas’s nightgown easing. She bites her lip, reaching out with her free hand to accept the book.

“Thank you very much, Miss Es-Billie. I’ll be the most careful, I promise.”

Billie waves a hand.

“Of course. Enjoy.” She nods to the rest of them, and then heads toward the stairs. Cas lets Susan guide him and Max to follow Anna into the kitchen to clean up their tea tray, and the moment they’re inside, she squeezes Max’s shoulder.

“You did it!” she crows. “I didn’t think you would!”

Max hugs the book to her chest, beaming.

“I didn’t think I would, either.”

“I told you she’d say yes.” She gives Cas and Anna a significant look. “Max spent the last _two_ _hours_ trying to work up the nerve to ask.”

“Borrowing things is an imposition,” Max mumbles. “And she’s an alpha. They have short tempers.”

“Fair enough, but you don’t have to be afraid of Billie, Max. I mean, I’m sure someone, _somewhere_ does — she can hit a man with a book from forty paces, after all — but not any of us.”

“I thought it was only twenty,” Anna says, setting the tray down by the sink, and Susan shrugs.

“Does it matter? If she misses the first time, he’ll come close enough to get the second one. Anyway — the worst you have to fear is that you’ll mess up her book and she won’t loan you any more.”

Max quickly shakes her head.

“I won’t. People who borrow things and ruin them are the _worst,_ ” she adds, somewhat fiercely. “I’ll return it exactly as it is now.”

“See? Nothing to worry about.”

Still, Max looks uncertain, so Cas lightly touches her shoulder.

“Susan’s right,” he adds softly. “Billie may seem intimidating — she can be very difficult to read, and she _is_ an alpha — but if I ever needed help, she’d be one of the first I would ask. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, even if you just wanted to talk to her about the book.”

Max lowers the book from her chest, staring down at its cover.

“I snuck a peek when she left it in the parlor,” she admits, looking torn. “Have you seen one, Castiel? How do you think they even _make_ them?”

He hesitates.

“I’m not sure. I had a few on my shelves in Lawrence, but Charlie said they’re hard to come by.”

“They must cost a fortune to produce,” Max mumbles, staring hard at the cover. “That’s probably why.”

“Well, and Billie’s shop was responsible for printing a lot of them, before her idiot brother stole it,” Anna points out, shaking water off the teapot as she reaches for the drying cloth. “A lot of the serials went unfinished.”

Max looks horrified.

“They did?”

Anna sighs.

“Honestly, I’ve never seen her lose her temper, but if Billie _did_ storm around Mills Park throwing alpha tantrums, I’m not sure I could blame her.” She pauses. “Though I’m not sure I could blame _any_ of you.”

Susan smirks.

“That’s probably why Miss Talbot tells us to laugh about it. She wants to make your life easier.”

Anna gives her a sharp look.

“I don’t think that’s it,” she mutters, then claps her hands together. “Anyway — to bed with you all.”

Max hesitates.

“Alright. But first — Anna, may I please have a new candle for my room? Mine is almost out.” She clears her throat, looking away. “But I’d like to get it tonight, just in case I forget.”

Anna gives the book in her hands a faintly disbelieving look, but nods.

“Of course, Max. And remember, here at Mills Park, you’re allowed to make your own decisions — even if they’re unwise. Just ask Cas.”

Cas scowls, Susan snickering beside him.

“I make perfectly wise decisions,” he insists, though Anna’s already disappearing into the pantry for a spare candle.

“Do you?” Susan asks gleefully. “The prince _still_ hasn’t done anything fun to your butt.”

Cas makes a face.

“I believe the ‘fun’ in that case belongs to him, not to me.”

“No, no, my barkeep said not to do it if you weren’t enjoying it!”

“So he acknowledged I may not enjoy it.”

Her mouth falls open.

“I . . . alright, yes, but I’m _sure_ —"

“I’m not,” Cas interrupts. “I’ll let Dean do what he will to my ‘butt’ if that’s what he wants, but if it’s not, I’d rather not test it.”

Anna reemerges, candle in hand.

“Susan, stop harassing Cas about his intimate activities; Cas, don’t let anyone do things to you or your butt if you’re not enjoying them; Max, please think of tomorrow-morning-you and don’t stay up too late.” She presents her with the candle, clearing her throat. “ _I_ am going upstairs, now.”

“Of course,” Max says quickly, eagerly tucking the candle alongside the book with a pleased smile. “I’ll go, too.”

They follow Anna to the foyer and up the stairs, and once Susan’s said good night on the second floor and gone to her room, they proceed to the third, where Max’s room is just off the landing.

She lets out a very loud, peculiar yawn once they reach it.

“Well, alright, then,” she says, pushing her door open, book and candle clutched close. “I’m going to go straight to bed, now. Good night, everyone.”

They bid her goodnight, and when her door is quickly shut, Anna shakes her head.

“She’s lucky she’s not on the morning shift.”

Cas smiles, trailing after her as she starts down the hall.

“I’m sure she won’t stay up that late.”

Anna snorts.

“I’m not.” She sighs. “That’s fine, though. In a perfect world, staying up too late reading would be the only thing she had to worry about.”

Cas says nothing for a moment, considering that.

“If I were her mother,” he finally starts. “I wouldn’t have cried, at her wedding.”

Anna cocks a brow.

“No?”

“No.” He nods. “I think I would have put something in my son-in-law’s ale.”

Anna nearly trips over the hall runner, giving him a stunned look.

And then she laughs.

“What a New Edenish solution, Cas.”

He shrugs.

“It’s effective,” he points out, and Anna just laughs harder.

Max comes to the kitchen the next morning with her hair loose and circles under her eyes, and she barely manages a polite good morning to the people she passes as she makes her way to Billie.

“Good morning, Billie. I came to return your book. Thank you very much for lending it to me.”

Billie lifts her brows.

“You already finished it?”

“I did. I was up half the night,” Max informs her, matter-of-fact, then takes a deep breath. “Is there a second part, and may I please borrow it?”

Billie smiles.

“There is. And you may. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“It was the best thing I’ve ever read,” Max answers seriously, and Billie nods.

“Art speaks in a way words cannot, and vice versa,” she offers. “But a combination is always nice.”

Max beams, despite the shadows under her eyes.

“I think a combination is _perfect._ May I ask — will you please tell me about how they’re made?”

“I don’t see why not." Billie lifts a shoulder. "Why don’t you find your breakfast while I retrieve the second volume from my room?”

Max spends the meal listening with rapt attention, one hand on the second volume in her lap like she’s taking a bible oath, and only through Lucy’s determined management does she actually eat anything on her plate.

Cas decides he would _definitely_ put something in his son-in-law’s ale.

His good humor fades as the day goes on, though, because regardless of what assurances Dean might have given him, the scope of Cas’s dysfunction proves even greater than he imagined.

“. . . some success circulating the prints in the Northern provinces — but it’s hard to measure these things. A positive response doesn’t necessarily translate to any kind of active change.”

“Right, but in this case, what we’re looking for is for you to create the positive response, so they’ll be _receptive_ to active changes from the capital.”

Dean gestures with his hands as he speaks, and Cas watches them, struggling not to think about the way they felt, smoothing across his back while Cas rocked against the firm muscle of Dean’s thigh.

“Anyway, Cas says you have a full parlor a lot of nights, and you were responsible for cementing support here in case his escape went south.”

“That’s true,” Anna says slowly. “But — Sioux Falls is a large city, and as we discussed, things are much more progressive, this far South. I’m not sure you can use that as any kind of metric.”

Dean hesitates, licking his lips, and from the opposite end of the settee, Cas swears he almost shivers, the base of his throat experiencing a phantom tingle.

_Good, Cas. Just like that._

He swallows, transfixed as Dean slumps back against the settee and scrubs a hand down his face, shirt pulling taut across his arms and shoulders. Cas remembers clinging to them, last night, pleasure overwhelming the rest of his body as Dean murmured encouragements against his neck, lips soft as they moved down it, fingers tangling through Cas’s hair at the end.

“Yes, but I’m not sure your primary focus shouldn’t _be_ the safe houses,” Anna counters, though Cas is struggling to pay attention, and couldn’t tell you what exactly she was countering. “The capital establishing and supporting them makes it clear they stand behind the women who live there, and the surrounding towns and cities will take their cue from that. They’ll be sympathetic. They’ll have faces to keep in mind, when we speak to them. I can’t overstate how important it was to be able to talk about Cas; if you just discuss these things in the abstract, very few people find it in themselves to care, at least not enough to want to do anything about it.”

Cas woke up hard this morning; he ignored it, as he always does, but he thought about what Dean said last night, and a part of him wondered if he shouldn’t, if he should try touching himself the way he does in a heat, when he can get away with it.

But Dean _had_ let him do that, the night before, and doing anything like it so soon after just seemed excessive, whether Dean thinks it’s okay or not, and since it didn’t linger, he didn’t give it another thought.

“Yeah, but you said yourself that you have a hard time talking people into going with you. And Alex and — uh, Miss Talbot, they put out feelers, when they get to a new town, right? No one’s going to show up to the safe house if they don’t know it’s there. And for all we know, people might protest setting them up in the first place, if they don’t understand what it’s about. They could be hostile to the initial residents. And I’m not gonna lie, a huge condition here is how self-sufficient these places can be. If they’re sitting empty, we risk the council nixing the plan altogether.”

He’s thinking about it now, though. He’s thinking about a _lot_ of things, in fact. Dean is in deep debate with Anna, the morning sun lighting his face and glinting off his eyes as he stands and begins pacing, visibly agitated, and this is an important meeting, a meeting Cas should at least be _trying_ to pay attention to, even if he’s unlikely to be able to offer any input.

“Maybe if you put out a notice in the paper that says you’re rehoming flighty runaways, but if you’re quiet about it, and Alex and Be-Miss Talbot travel through the nearby areas, you shouldn’t have any trouble. Establishing themselves as part of the community before people understand where they’re coming from should make people more willing to listen. It’s not like they won’t be backed by the capital.”

But no; Cas has two deaf ears and a yawning space between them preoccupied thinking about Dean’s mouth on his neck, about Dean’s body underneath his, about rubbing his hardness against Dean’s thigh until the good feeling happens while Dean touches him and kisses him and does that terrible, wonderful thing with his teeth and no _wonder_ Cas’s parents made him spend so much time in the attic, far away from others.

Clearly, there’s something wrong with him.

“And I get that, but forget the provinces, every _town_ has its own ideas about things, and if they feel like the capital’s doing something out of nowhere, they just dig in their heels. If young people weren’t so weirded out about the New Eden tradition, it would have taken a lot more fighting to get it thrown out.” Dean shakes his head. “Like you yourself said, everywhere isn’t Sioux Falls. Jody might have been able to quietly start taking in strays, but that’s not going to work with random houses throughout the kingdom, especially if they _aren’t_ half a kingdom away from whoever’s going to be pissed they ran off, and if we want these places to succeed? Picking locations and preparing them is crucial.”

“But I’m not sure it _is._ You’re not asking people to house these women themselves; you’re just asking them to let them be a part of their broader community and economy, like anyone else who passes through and decides to stay. Where they’re coming from should be irrelevant. And no, a small town in the North might not be happy about it, but you wouldn’t _put_ a safe house there. You’re looking at larger towns and cities, which are always more progressive, and always less likely to be shy of new people, and I think establishing these places and making them accessible to people who need them _now_ should take precedence over priming the surrounding populace for the changes you already admitted were going to take time.”

And it _is_ wrong, it’s horrible and bad and Cas should be too consumed with shame to bother about anything else, but in this moment, Dean crossing his arms and standing tall, strong jaw set — all Cas wants is for his sister to shut up so he can take Dean upstairs and crawl into his lap and kiss him and grind himself against his thigh until the good feeling happens and Cas makes a mess of the powder blue drawers Dean picked out for him the night before.

“Could you start with setting some up near their House seats?” he blurts out, fingers digging into the settee cushion. “The councilmembers, I mean. Aren’t they typically from well-populated areas?”

They both turn to look at him him, startled.

“Uh. Yeah,” Dean says, brow knitting as he comes to a stop a few feet away from Cas. Cas nods and takes a deep breath, hoping he’s managed to glean enough from the conversation that he’s not making an idiot of himself.

“You mentioned someone who was an uncle, that would support you. If you approach sympathetic council members, the towns and cities loyal to them may be more receptive to hosting the safe houses than if it’s just an order from the capital. And Anna could circulate her prints and speak while it’s being set up.” He hesitates. “You might even be able to find known parties interested in helping to manage them, while you did so.”

Anna lifts her brows, folding her arms and leaning back against the window sill by the puzzle table.

“That’s . . . not a bad idea. Well, assuming you have sympathetic councilmembers, which I would have, given that they sanctioned this in the first place, but you’re giving me the distinct impression that they didn’t _want_ to.”

Dean swallows, still looking at Cas with a strange expression.

“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, no, it — it took some persuading.”

She tilts her head.

“From who?”

Dean’s still watching Cas, though his head twitches toward her.

“From . . . the people who supported it.”

Anna purses her lips.

“Alright. Whose idea was it?”

“Someone who thought it was a good idea,” Dean says distractedly, then takes a slow, deep breath. “Can we, uh. Can we break for lunch?”

Relief surges within Cas, and he shoots his sister a hopeful look.

She stares.

“It’s barely eleven.”

“I slept late and missed breakfast,” Dean says.

“I could bring you to my room with some leftovers,” Cas offers quickly.

“Yeah? That — that sounds great.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Anna opens her mouth.

“I guess I’ll — make myself a cup of tea, then.”

Cas nods.

“You could see if Max wants to take a break from reading to work on the puzzle with you,” he suggests kindly, and Anna squints.

“That makes it sound like this is going to be a long lunch.”

Cas swallows.

“He . . . he did miss breakfast.”

For a moment, she just looks at him.

Then she sighs.

“Right. Enjoy yourselves.”

Dean rolled out of bed at nine AM, exhausted from a late night spent wrapped in the tartan blanket and thinking about how Cas had looked and sounded and smelled while he brought himself to orgasm in Dean’s lap, and upon stumbling downstairs to Bobby’s dining room, he ate a mountain of eggs, three sausages, two rashers of bacon, and half-a-dozen popovers slathered in butter because there’s nothing like a strangely unfulfilling jerkoff session followed by a night of tossing and turning in a state of half-conscious semi-arousal to leave you starving and cranky.

Needless to stay, he’s not hungry right now.

What he _is_ is hyper-conscious of the way Cas was looking at him in the parlor, all dark-eyed and faintly flushed and tense in _just that way,_ and even if all of that could have been chalked up to Dean’s super inappropriate imagination, the scent drifting low and sweet toward him from the settee _definitely_ could not.

And even though Dean should be _above_ this, should have been able to ignore any signs of arousal Cas was throwing off in the face of pressing kingdom matters, no matter how blatant or severe—

“Dean,” Cas pants, scrambling to keep himself upright against the door, grip tight on Dean’s shoulders, and Dean helpfully pushes forward, slotting a thigh between Cas’s as he presses in chest-to-chest with him, mouth skimming greedily over his faintly prickly jaw. “Yes — Dean — can we — I want—"

Dean licks along the shell of Cas’s ear, and Cas shudders, head falling to the side, like it pretty much always does, and _God_ , more than ever, someone needs to tell Cas what that does to people like Dean, what it makes them want to _do,_ because it’s like Cas has no fucking clue how bad Dean wants him and how much worse it makes it when he bares his throat or makes those rough, choked sounds of pleasure or shudders in Dean’s arms like whatever’s happening is too fucking overwhelming to contain.

“What do you want?” Dean mumbles, dipping down to the long, smooth line of Cas’s throat, hungrily tracing his pulse point with his lips. “That was — a great idea,” he adds, flicking his tongue out against the skin, and Cas sucks in a breath, grip tightening. “I owe you.”

Cas swallows, throat bobbing right underneath Dean’s mouth.

“I just wanted you both to shut up,” he whispers, clutching Dean close. “I couldn’t — I was thinking about last night.”

A little thrill sweeps through Dean and he shivers, pausing over Cas’s neck.

“Yeah? What were you thinking?”

Cas hesitates, and Dean gently noses aside his collar and kisses the skin underneath, relishing the sweet burst of scent that hits him when he does.

“Cas.”

Cas takes a deep breath.

“I — I was thinking that I wanted to take you to my room and do it again. Can I — will you let me—"

“Yeah,” Dean says, quickly stepping back, and Cas stumbles forward with him, startled. “Sorry, just — yeah. Of course you can, Cas. Let’s sit on the bed.”

Cas nods, drawing back enough so their feet aren’t quite so tangled up, and by some miracle, they manage to trip their way over to the bed and clamber on.

“Do you think Anna will notice I didn’t come to get leftovers?” Cas asks breathlessly, throwing a guilty look over his shoulder, and Dean quickly shakes his head.

“Nah, she — she’s gonna do a puzzle with Max, right?” He reaches up, tugging Cas’s cravat loose and pulling it free, fingers fumbling for the button. “Probably won’t give it a second thought.”

“Oh.” Cas shifts forward so he can settle in Dean’s lap, his own hands scrambling for the waist of Dean’s shirt, struggling to pull it free. “That — that’s good.”

***

Dean laughs, and Cas smiles slightly, but then he’s sliding his hands up Dean’s shirt and leaning down to kiss him and Dean stops laughing and then Cas starts rocking against his thigh and dear God, Dean can’t believe he was talking about safe havens for women down on their luck twenty minutes ago because all he can think about now is stripping Cas bare and laying him out and spending the whole goddamn day buried under the covers doing things it will take three washings to rid the sheets of evidence of.

“Kiss my neck, Dean,” Cas murmurs, pulling away and tilting his head and Dean wastes no time threading his fingers through Cas’s hair and getting his mouth back on the soft skin beneath his collar, Cas’s scent blooming bright and fresh and sweet between them as he quietly pants in Dean’s ear. “I want — last time, your teeth—"

Dean shudders, hand tightening in Cas’s hair, and Cas cuts off with a groan.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” he manages. “Was an accident.”

“Do it again,” Cas counters immediately, and he has no fucking idea, does he? No one told him it was okay to touch himself and no one told him asking for someone’s teeth in any capacity is about as bad as three sets of chrysanthemums and even though Dean knows better, knows that’s not what Cas means, knows he’s probably going to end up sitting this round out, too, even if he feels like he’s about two minutes away from coming in his pants already—

He brushes his thumb across Cas’s temple and seals his mouth over the skin above his collarbone, lightly pulling it between his teeth, and Cas lets out a hoarse cry and jerks, hands desperately gripping Dean’s sides.

“Like that?” Dean asks, Cas trembling in his lap, hips stuttering.

“Yes — yes, why does that feel so—"

Dean scrapes his teeth over the spot again, gently lapping at the reddening flesh when he’s through, and Cas moans, hands sliding around Dean’s back and holding on.

“Can we try something different?” Dean mumbles, even though he’s already struggling to keep his head. “I want you to — I think it’ll feel better, for you, if you do it this other way. Can I show you?”

Cas nods, rubbing his cheek along Dean’s shoulder before reluctantly drawing away, pupils wide and dark and face flushed.

Dean just about swallows his tongue.

“Are you — are you comfortable taking yourself out?” he finally manages to ask, and Cas’s brow furrows, gaze hovering somewhere a little south of Dean’s eyes.

“What?”

“Your, uh. Your dick. Is that okay?”

Cas swallows, meeting his eyes.

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“I won’t look,” Dean promises. “Just like last time, I won’t look. But I’m gonna — I wanna let you rub against my hip, okay? You can lie down and just — I think you’ll like it better. But it’ll be your skin on mine, so if that — if you’re not okay with that, this is good, too.” Dean licks his lips. “I just want you to feel good. That’s all.”

Cas hesitates.

“And . . . you won’t look.”

“I won’t. And we’ll stop if you don’t like it.”

Cas nods, slow.

“Okay.” He looks down briefly, then touches Dean’s cheek. “Then — close your eyes.”

Dean closes them.

“I’m gonna lie back and shift some clothes around, okay?”

“Okay,” Cas says quietly, and Dean slowly lowers himself back, reaching for the tie on his trousers so he can pull them open and shift the waist of his shorts down.

“When you’re ready,” he says softly, though his heart is still thumping away in his chest, frenzied and eager for whatever happens next, “Just — lie forward, on me, and do your thing.”

Cas doesn’t say anything; there’s a faint rustling sound, and then a hiss, and after another long moment, Dean feels his weight start to shift.

“I — like this?” Cas whispers, the mattress dipping on either side of Dean’s head, and a second later, Cas’s chest settles against Dean’s, warm and solid through his shirt.

Dean sucks in a breath, instinctively pushing up against it, because in addition to Cas’s firm weight atop him, he can feel Cas’s cock tuck against his hip, head smearing wetly over his stomach.

Cas freezes, twitching above him, breath warm on Dean’s chin.

“Yeah,” Dean says faintly, reaching up to place a hand on his back, lightly stroking. “Just like that.”

Cas takes a deep breath.

“And — and you — you want me to move. Like I did yesterday.”

“However feels good, Cas. Just — go with your instinct.”

There’s a long silence, and then the warmth against his face disappears as he feels Cas lower his head to the side of Dean’s, breathing in deep.

Then he sort of pushes his hips forward, sliding over the soft, sensitive skin surrounding Dean’s hip, and lets out a small cry.

“Dean,” he chokes out, and Dean nods, bringing his other hand up to stroke through Cas’s hair.

“How does that feel?”

“Better,” Cas agrees, strained as he thrusts against Dean’s hip again, movement small and uncertain, and Dean turns, pressing a kiss to what feels like the side of Cas’s ear. He ducks his chin, letting the next one land just underneath it, and Cas shivers, rocking against him with a little more force. “It — a lot better.”

“That’s what I was hoping for,” Dean murmurs, and after a beat, he feels Cas’s head turn beneath his hand, and then there’s a warm, soft mouth pressed to Dean’s, Cas’s hips still urgently rocking forward. Dean tightens his hold on Cas’s back, more for himself than for Cas, because Cas’s breaths are harsh and fast and his scent is making Dean think of white-blue skies after rain and impossibly green foliage rich with dew, a near unbearable sweetness spun through all of it, but mostly it’s making him think of _sex,_ of tangled limbs and bodies open in welcome, of _Cas’s_ body, warm and wanting and all for him, and even though he’s the least important part of all of this, it’s hard to remember that when he’s got Cas rutting into him and moaning against his lips and leaking onto his skin and—

Dean turns his face, mouthing down Cas’s jaw and toward his neck as he desperately tries to ground himself, tries not to push up against Cas’s leg in search of friction for himself, because God, he wants it, he wants it so _bad_ , and all his instincts are trying to convince him Cas wants it, too, wants Dean to roll him over and strip him bare and sink his teeth into his pretty, unblemished neck while Cas trembles and squirms around his knot, taking everything Dean is so fucking desperate to give with an unspoken promise for the future, but he can’t, he knows he can’t, so he settles for sucking at the sensitive skin of Cas’s neck, pulse thrumming beneath it as Dean holds fast, and beyond that, he keeps himself still.

Cas doesn’t, though. Cas moves faster and faster, rests his forehead against the bed and buries his sounds in Dean’s shoulder, and when his movements start to stutter and Dean is lightheaded and struggling to keep holding still, he clutches Cas close and raises his mouth to his ear.

“Just like that,” he whispers again, and Cas makes a strangled sound against him. “You’re doin’ perfect, Cas, just let it go.”

Cas jerks, spilling against him with a rough cry, and even though Dean’s afraid it’s going to be a matter of _hours_ before his erection dies down today, he can’t fight a grin as Cas gasps and twitches in his embrace, breaths warm through Dean’s shirt where his face is tucked against it.

Because fine, maybe Dean’s mostly just lying there, barely a step above rutting against the mattress because you’re too tired to do anything else, but still. He’s lying there for _Cas,_ and sure enough, Cas came from it, and amid the dizzying cloud of arousal, there’s a soft thread of _happiness,_ which means he probably feels pretty good about it, too, and for that—

For that, Dean would lie down and pretend to be a mattress any day.

***

He gently pets over Cas’s hair, lightly mouthing back up to his jaw as he does so.

“Good?” he asks, once he makes it back to his ear, and Cas shivers and nods.

“Yes,” he whispers. “Very good.”

Dean smiles against his jaw.

“Can I kiss you, or do you need a minute?”

Cas immediately turns, mouth brushing the corner of Dean’s.

“You can,” he mumbles, shifting until they fit together. “Love kissing you,” he adds, soft words nearly lost altogether, and Dean stills. “So much, Dean.”

Which, that’s fair. Kissing’s pretty nice, and Dean’s a pretty good kisser, and since he’s the _only_ person Cas has kissed, Cas liking to kiss him just makes sense.

And if Dean almost feels like he just got told something else entirely, that’s because the person he loves is post-orgasm on top of him and throwing off happy-sated-omega pheromones like nobody’s business, so Dean can be forgiven for whatever kind of weird effect it’s having on his instincts.

“Me, too, Cas,” he says anyway, brushing their noses together. “Love everything I do with you.”

In response, Cas just tilts his head and kisses Dean harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> Sexual Content: Having retreated to Cas’s room, Dean and Cas are making out and Cas admits to having thought about the night prior. He asks if Dean will let him do it again. Dean leads him to the bed, and once there, asks if Cas is comfortable trying something a little different; he suggests Cas take out his penis, and that Dean lie back and undo his trousers enough to leave his hip bare for Cas to thrust against him skin-to-skin, hoping this will be more pleasurable for Cas. They proceed in this fashion; Dean imagines fully mating Cas and knotting him, as he lies there, though he does nothing more than touch Cas’s back and kiss him. He does not orgasm.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: sexual content (summary in the notes, scene marked *** at the beginning and end if you’d like to skip it), negative feelings following a sexual experience (not dub-con, just a misunderstanding, details if you’re worried), brief discussion of how libraries may or may not impact profits for authors and booksellers, my mother called me out on this whole ‘best friend’ nonsense happening in both my fics but I swear that’s a coincidence, please let me know if I missed anything, also friendly reminder that opinions voiced in the story are not the author’s or a judgment on differing viewpoints, i.e. I will totally eat biscotti in any state it comes in.
> 
> ( **Also!!!** If you have not seen them!! [Diminuel](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/) has bestowed upon the world these amazing drawings of [Dean](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/post/622351193000345600/diminuel-a-tale-of-a-prince-and-a-nightgown-i) and [Cas](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/post/622351209472376832/diminuel-i-was-asked-to-draw-cas-in-a-nightgown) in nightgowns, and also!!!! Cas in [the Drive dress](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/post/622351150764670976/diminuel-i-was-browsing-for-references-and-came) I will be picturing in my head from now on ♡♡♡♡)

The kisses slow at some point, late morning sun warming the room as lingering euphoria returns to more reasonable levels, and as his body settles down and Dean pulls back to smile at him, hand stroking through his hair, Cas finally remembers himself.

He takes a deep breath, not quite sure how to say it.

“Dean. Are you . . . yesterday, when you — when you let me do that — afterward, you were, um, erect.”

Dean’s smile slips, green eyes blinking.

“Uh.”

“Are you now?”

Dean swallows, hand stilling.

“Uhhh.”

Seconds pass, nothing else forthcoming, and only a hot sort of shyness prevents Cas from investigating for himself.

“If you are . . . you can, um. Do as you will.”

Dean blinks, mouth opening, though again, he fails to speak.

Cas clears his throat, inspecting the pillow.

“If you’re erect, and you’d like to . . .”

Dean’s eyes widen a fraction.

“Oh.” He swallows again. “And is that — is that something _you_ , uh, would like to do?”

Cas considers lying, for a moment, but Dean is watching him with such earnest intent, he can’t quite bring himself to.

Instead, he lifts his hand, lightly petting over Dean’s jaw.

“I’ll let you,” he promises. “I’m very grateful, Dean. Whatever you want to do — I’ll let you.”

Dean’s expression freezes for a moment. Then his brow sort of twitches down and he looks away, reaching up to stay Cas’s hand.

“I — thanks. But — you know, I — I’m good. And . . . no need to, uh. To be grateful, or anything. Okay?”

Cas frowns a little.

“But—"

Dean coughs, giving his hand a squeeze and glancing back with a smile.

“But I think you promised me leftovers,” he finishes, and Cas gives him a startled look.

“You’re hungry?”

“I wasn’t when we were in the parlor,” Dean admits, shifting as he settles back against the pillow, chest warm and solid under Cas’s. Cas is tempted to shift after him, to settle over him the way he was when Dean allowed him to rub against his hip, but he knows he’s probably too heavy for that in the longterm. “But yeah, a snack sounds kinda nice, now. If you tell me how to get one, I’ll bring it back here for you.”

Cas hesitates, the idea strangely appealing.

“But you’re my guest.”

“Yeah, and my awesome host wore himself out just now,” Dean points out, grinning a little, and it’s hard for Cas not to want to answer that with a smile of his own.

“Well, alright. If you insist.”

Dean laughs, propping up on his elbows, and gives Cas a brief, off-center kiss.

“I do, buddy.” He gently nudges Cas aside, sitting up and reaching for the throw at the end, and Cas looks on with interest as Dean puts it over him, drawing the other pillows a little closer. “Comfy?”

Cas nods slowly.

“Yes. Thank you.” He pauses, watching Dean watch him for a moment, and then remembers. “Few of us are at home for lunch; they usually just leave the remains of breakfast out.”

Dean nods, reaching out to smooth back his hair.

“Okay. If you decide to take a nap, I won’t judge you.”

Cas smiles.

“That’s very generous, but I’m not tired.”

Dean raises a brow.

“Well, then I didn’t do my job right, did I?”

Cas blinks at him, confused, and Dean abruptly stiffens.

“Just — anyway. Yeah. Food. I’ll go get us some.” He coughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Cas squints, burrowing a little further down. It would have been too hot for the blanket ten minutes ago, but now that he’s settled down and Dean has moved away, he appreciates it.

“I don’t know where I’d go.”

Dean relaxes, smile returning.

“Good, but if you figure something out, stay put anyway, okay? See you in a bit.”

Cas watches him slide off the bed and head for the door, and with a final smile and wave, Dean leaves.

Cas immediately curls up on his side, turning his face into the bed a little, and carefully breathes in.

Dean is the strangest person Cas has ever met, he thinks.

Still-

Cas loves him a little more every day.

Dean’s well-aware of how he must smell right now, but when he encounters two women having tea in the kitchen, neither of them seem surprised.

“Oh, hello, your highness! Having a nice morning?”

Dean suppresses a snort. _That’s_ an understatement. The only thing that would have made his morning better would have been if Cas’s answer to _and is that something you_ _would like to do_ had been to push Dean back against the bed and lean in close to growl _don’t ask stupid questions_ in his ear before he put one of those strong, pretty hands around Dean’s dick and showed him in no uncertain terms just how interested he was.

But that didn’t happen, nor did Dean have any expectations for it to, and even though it kind of stung, Cas assuring Dean he’d let him do what he wanted — Cas saying he was _grateful,_ like he had zero clue what Dean was here for in the first place, like it wasn’t Dean’s undeserved privilege and honor to get to do that for him — Dean’s fine with it.

“I am, actually. How about you two?”

They exchange thoughtful looks.

“I think so,” one of them says slowly. “Just enjoying a quiet day off. Like Castiel. Speaking of Castiel, where is he?”

Dean pauses in his inspection of a covered basket.

“Uh. Upstairs.”

“I see. It’s so nice of you to bring him lunch, even though you’re the guest.”

Uncomfortable, he shrugs, lifting the edge of the towel and putting two popovers on the plate.

“Oh, well, he — he’s tired, so . . .”

“Is he?” They sip their tea, watching with interest. “How strange. He slept in today.”

Dean shrugs again, spooning some grapes onto the plate.

“Yeah, well. He works hard.”

There’s silence, and then a stifled giggle.

Dean’s cheeks heat.

“Anyway, he’s always making tea for me and stuff, so . . . least I could do,” he mumbles, eyeing the bacon critically; protein is good, right? Maybe that wasn’t as strenuous as some of the things they could have done, but Cas was collapsed, shaking and panting over him when all was said and done, which means he could probably use some protein, doesn’t it?

He plucks a few pieces off the dish, hoping Cas won’t mind it cold, and reaches for a bowl of potatoes.

“Really?” one of them asks, suspiciously curious. “You didn’t already do anything in return?”

Dean coughs, trying not to think about Cas’s pulse quivering under his tongue, the head of Cas’s cock smearing wetly across Dean’s hip as he rutted against it.

“Nope,” he croaks out, and the other one hums.

“Huh. Wouldn’t have figured you for one of _those_ alphas.”

Dean freezes.

“What?”

“Such a shame,” the first one murmurs, idly spinning her cup. “An omega offers you something nice and hot and wet — like tea, I mean — you really ought to give something back.”

Dean gapes, potato spoon hanging sad and limp in his hand.

“Maybe even something . . . hard and rough,” her companion agrees, then adds, “Like biscotti! Do you bake, your highness?”

“Of course he doesn’t bake. He’s a prince; he probably just takes sweets from other people, and it never even occurs to him to reciprocate.”

Dean drops the spoon on the counter.

“Yes, I do! I totally do! Just — it’s just — Cas doesn’t — he doesn’t _like_ biscotti!”

They stare back, unimpressed.

“Well, did you try giving him some?”

“It’s best when you dip it in something,” the other tacks on kindly. “Get it nice and _soaked_. After all, nobody likes to have it dry.”

For a moment, all Dean can do is stare, face on fire.

They merely stare back, expressions bland, and then take a sip of tea in unison, perfect mirrors of one another.

“I’m just — I’m gonna bring Cas his lunch,” he finally manages to say, hurriedly dumping a spoonful of potatoes on the plate.

And then, he flees from the kitchen as fast as he can without making it look like he’s running.

“Hey — do you, um. Do you . . . do you like biscotti?”

Cas blinks, pausing as he separates a chunk of popover from the rest.

“What is that, again?”

“It’s like a cookie? They, uh, they bake it twice?”

“Ah.” Cas remembers trying those with Samandriel on one of their visits in town. “No, not particularly. To be honest, I don’t really care for hard things.”

Dean swallows.

“What about . . . what about when you get it wet?”

Cas makes a face.

“No. That’s almost worse.”

Dean looks dismayed.

“Oh. Okay. Just . . . I just thought — you know, I always come here, and you like — you make me tea and pies and stuff, but I don’t do anything for you.”

Cas raises his brows, surprised.

“You brought me a picnic. And you’ve brought breakfast.”

“Yeah, but Bobby’s kitchen staff makes that.”

“I didn’t think you cooked. Or baked.”

Dean winces, looking down.

“I — I mean, no, but — but I could learn. If there’s something you’d be interested in, I would — I would totally do it. Anything you wanted.”

Cas studies him, perplexed.

“Anything I wanted?” he echoes.

He’s not going to lie; it’s an attractive offer, coming from Dean, but since Cas has already secured the promise of regular visits, among other things, there’s really only one thing that comes to mind, at this point, and that is absolutely not what Dean is talking about.

Cas looks down, face suddenly warm.

“No. I don’t have anything I love to eat, the way you love pie.” Cas pauses, then smiles slightly. “I could teach you, though.”

He enjoyed getting out of his room and spending time in the kitchen learning that; Dean’s circumstances are, obviously, different, but even now, Cas likes working in the kitchen with other people.

He doesn’t doubt he’d like being in there with Dean, too.

Dean’s lips quirk, though he looks a little frustrated.

“Not saying I wouldn’t like that, but now we’re back to you doing something for me.”

Cas tilts his head.

“Which is fair.” He hesitates, unsure what’s alright to discuss. “You did something very nice for me, this morning. Even though I interrupted your meeting.”

Dean coughs, scratching the back of his neck.

“Right, but — you had a good point. And it, uh, it turned out to be a pretty great interruption.”

“It did,” Cas agrees slowly, a little fascinated by the color letting into Dean’s cheeks, something hot pricking underneath his own skin, a something he thinks he may recognize but is a little appalled to be experiencing again this soon. “Certainly worth a pie lesson.”

Dean licks his lips, and that hot little spark flares.

“Yeah? What if I need more than one?”

Cas gives him a bemused look.

“Then . . . I’ll give you more than one?”

Dean blinks, and then he snorts, ducking his chin and laughing.

“No — Cas, you’re supposed to — this is where you negotiate.”

“Negotiate what?”

Dean shrugs, clearly entertained.

“You know — you set the cost of each pie lesson at like, one orgasm or something.”

Cas furrows his brow, lost.

“One . . . what? Or what?”

Dean’s grin falters.

“Orgasm,” he says, and Cas blinks.

“Or gasm,” he repeats slowly. “And . . . what is a ‘gasm?’”

Dean looks startled.

“Oh. Right. It, uh. It’s — an orgasm is — it’s the thing, that happens, when you—" Dean cuts off, grimacing. “When we do what we did, it’s the thing at the end. The good thing. That’s — you have an orgasm. Or you — you give yourself one. Or somebody else does.”

Cas lifts his brows.

“Oh.” He considers this. “That makes it sounds like a tangible possession.”

Dean lets out a startled laugh.

“I mean — maybe? But no, it’s like — saying you have a stomachache. Just . . . a temporary experience.”

Cas makes a face.

“I’d rather have this than a stomachache,” he says immediately, and Dean laughs again.

“Yeah, most people would, Cas.”

_That,_ Cas believes, and if he thought a perverse part of him pitied other omegas during his heat, shame and inconvenience of his defect notwithstanding — well, it was nothing compared to how he feels now.

Even if it didn’t seem private, he doesn’t think he should tell anyone else what Dean lets him do. Perhaps it will be meaningless to them, without any point of reference, but Cas suddenly feels very sorry for girls that they don’t get to have ‘orgasms,’ and he doesn’t see why he should risk taunting them with knowledge of something so wonderful but unachievable for them.

“What?” Dean asks suddenly, looking curious, and Cas shakes himself.

“Nothing. Just — thinking of how fortunate I am.” He blinks, realizing the strangeness of what he said, because for once, he isn’t thinking about his circumstances.

He’s thinking about his _body._

_That_ _’s a good thing._ _That_ _’s a gift._

Cas instinctively looks down, like said body is a separate entity from him, innocuously going about its business while he observes it in this bizarre new light, because whatever good things might have befallen his circumstances—

This, what he has, what he _is —_ it’s not supposed to be a gift. If anything, it’s supposed to be a curse. According to most , it’s supposed to be a _punishment_ , for his mother, perhps even for things Cas doesn’t know and can’t remember.

It was never supposed to bring him anything but trouble, trouble well-deserved, and yet—

“Fortunate?” Dean echoes, and Cas looks back up at him, still a little shocked.

“I — yes.” He stares at Dean, awed. “I . . . I can have orgasms.”

Dean blinks back at him for a moment, seeming equally stunned, and then he bursts out laughing.

“Yeah, buddy,” he agrees, green eyes bright. “You can.”

Cas finds himself smiling too, though he’s not quite sure what Dean finds so funny.

“It’s a good thing,” he confirms, and Dean laughs harder, leaning back against the pillows beside him.

“If you like ‘em, yeah. A really good thing, Cas.”

“And . . . for every pie lesson I give you — you’ll give me a, um, an orgasm?”

Dean quiets a little, though the humor doesn’t leave his gaze.

“Cas. Whether you give me pie lessons or not, I’ll give you as many orgasms as you want.”

Cas looks away, embarrassed. Obviously, today must be an anomaly of some sort; wanting to interrupt an afternoon meeting to whisk Dean away and demand orgasms is hardly a sustainable desire, moving forward.

He imagines it’s like trying a new food you like; you want to eat it as soon as possible after the first time, just to experience it again, but the novelty wears off quickly.

“I don’t want that many,” he assures Dean, and it’s not even a lie. Cas doesn’t know how many he wants, yet, but however many it turns out to be, he’s certainly not going to behave unreasonably over it. “Just . . . occasionally. That seems — correct.”

Although — even if Dean confirms that, ‘occasionally’ is vague. Should he ask how often _is_ reasonable?

But then he thinks of his twenty pairs of drawers and his enormous garden fountain and hours of a prince’s time devoted daily to helping maintain it, and he realizes that actually, Dean’s probably not a reliable source of information about what’s ‘reasonable’ at all. He’s allowed Cas so many unreasonable things at this point, Cas has lost count, and he thinks he could probably ask for an orgasm every _day_ , as if it were afternoon tea or something, and Dean would just go right along without ever once telling him that generally, they put the sort of people who want daily orgasms into _mental_ institutions.

Except — this _is_ the second day in a row Cas has asked for such a thing, and even if he’s positive that the craving for this novel pleasure, unburdened by the discomforts of heat and enhanced by all the lovely things Dean does to him while it happens, should wear off soon — what if Dean thinks this is just the way he is?

What if Dean thinks that he’ll be expected to spend the bulk of all his visits trapped upstairs in Cas’s bedroom, forced to lie pliant beneath Cas as he mercilessly slakes his lust on Dean’s poor, abused body, demanding orgasm after orgasm as though it were his due?

“Um,” Dean starts, the beginnings of a frown on his face, and horror rushes through Cas as he realizes Dean must have been following the same train of thought. “When you say ‘correct’ — what do you m—"

“Not every day,” Cas interrupts quickly. “Sorry. I realize ‘occasionally’ wasn’t specific. But — I wouldn’t — one, maybe? Every other visit?” he adds, carefully examining Dean’s expression for his true feelings instead of whatever kind reassurance he’ll no doubt try to give.

(And though the idea of having to wait months in between getting orgasms from Dean is unexpectedly depressing, he ruthlessly suppresses the feeling, because it _is_ unreasonable. Cas has gone twenty-five years with only a handful of orgasms — if you can even count the woefully inferior thing that happens when he’s left alone in heat — and he can certainly go months between having them now.)

Dean’s brows lift in surprise, and for a moment, he just stares.

“Uh,” he eventually says, and Cas is distantly surprised his own skin doesn’t turn itself inside out.

“On second thought,” he starts, shame brittle in his bones. “As you pointed out — I can give myself orgasms. I don’t think I should ask you for any, after all.”

Dean’s whole body goes stiff, mouth falling open, and despite his own profound disappointment, Cas hastens to correct his mistake.

“But I’ll still give you pie lessons,” he promises, lest this seem like some sort of unscrupulous hostage situation, designed to force Dean into providing orgasms in exchange for something a decent person would be happy to give for free.

“Uh, Cas—"

Whatever else he’s about to say is, thankfully, cut off by a knock on the door, and Cas quickly sits up and away from him, shrugging free of the blanket.

“Yes?”

“I hate to interrupt,” Anna calls, and for once, sounds strangely like she means it. “But it’s noon and I have commissions to work on, so if his highness has more to discuss with me, it would be nice if we could do that sooner rather than later.”

“Yes, of course,” Cas agrees, eager to put all the awkwardness of orgasm negotiation behind him. “You can come in.”

“Wait—" Dean starts, just as Anna pushes open the door.

It freezes halfway, his sister’s eyes going wide.

And then it promptly slams shut.

“I’ll wait in the parlor,” she snaps tiredly, and Cas gives the shut door a puzzled look.

“Cas,” Dean says behind him, strained, and Cas tenses, afraid he’s going to try and resume that dreadful conversation. “You, uh. You probably wanna put yourself away.”

“Put myself away?” Cas echoes, looking over his shoulder in confusion. “Away where?”

Dean swallows, looking to the side, and after a brief, awkward pause, he lifts a hand, pointing to Cas’s—

“Oh,” Cas says, staring down at his bare penis in surprise. “I apologize. That was rude of me.”

Dean’s silent for a moment.

And then he turns his face into the pillow and laughs so hard the bed shakes.

Fortunately, the remainder of his discussion with Anna takes less than another hour — Dean has to go feel out the councilmembers and figure out arrangements there before he can ask her to do too much more — because as it turns out, there’s _another_ discussion he needs to have, one that is arguably just as important, if in a very different way.

_Un_ fortunately, Cas excuses himself to make a cup of tea and have a lie-down before they’re finished — “I suddenly feel very tired,” he announces, puzzled, and Anna gives the window a longing look while Dean awkwardly inspects his feet — which means that when all is said and done, Anna has him alone.

“Before you go,” she starts, folding her arms and plunking into the chair catty-corner to him on the settee, brow furrowed. “I’d like to talk to you about something.”

Dean tries not to look too apprehensive over what that something is.

“Uh. Okay. Shoot.”

She hesitates.

“I should be blunt,” she eventually says, then nods. “In the capital — I assume you know how to practice intimacy safely?”

Dean blinks.

“Uh. I — well — yes?”

She nods again, stare intent.

“And I assume you’ll be careful to do so, while you’re here?”

Heat seeps into his cheeks, agonizing as her meaning sinks in.

“I — _of course,_ ” he sputters, rubbing his neck. “I would never — and listen, we’re not—"

She quickly waves a hand.

“I really don’t need to know. Just — be considerate of my brother, your highness. And I mean that in _all_ the ways.”

She stands, giving him an even look, the ‘or else’ going unsaid.

“Good luck with your council,” she offers politely, and with a final nod, quits the parlor.

Dean stares balefully at the settee cushion in her absence.

Cas enjoys a brief but restful nap before Dean returns to the room and gently wakes him, and Cas is pleased to find it early enough for them to still go into town.

He’s less pleased to find Dean falling strangely quiet throughout the day, some combination of thoughtful and troubled, especially unsettling on Dean, in particular, though Dean smiles every time he catches Cas looking.

They encounter Samandriel at the bakery, where an older woman is delighted to encounter Dean, though before she greets them properly, she pats Samandriel on the head and whispers something that makes him turn red and sigh.

“Been a long time since we’ve seen this boy runnin’ around our town,” she informs Cas, sly. “Sure is sweet of him to come see you like this.”

“It is,” Cas agrees, although Dean is beginning to look as uncomfortable as Samandriel does. “Although, we are best friends; one of us has to make the trip.”

Her smile falters, and then she laughs, clapping her hands together.

“Oh, is _that_ what you’re tellin’ His Majesty?” she chuckles. “Well, we’ll be sure to stick to it if anybody comes asking.”

Cas doesn’t quite understand, but Dean looks embarrassed and Samandriel, to Cas’s surprise, almost looks _upset._

Anyway, they chat with Samandriel in between breaks in customers while they nibble at their soft pretzels, Dean looking strangely tired when Cas points out that they’re vastly superior to the hard ones, and Cas is at once puzzled and fascinated by the awkwardness that seems to fall between them.

It’s particularly bad when Samandriel starts asking about their plans, then shares, in unexpected detail, stories of all the places in town he and Cas have been to.

“Oh! And you can rent little boats on the east side of the harbor, and it’s a _wonderful_ way to spend an afternoon. You don’t even have to row them, really; you can just sit together and drift.” Samandriel pauses, giving Dean a sunny smile. “Of course, they’re a little cramped. When you’re two men like all of us are — you practically end up _sitting_ on each other.”

“Is that right?” Dean says, tone odd, and Cas frowns, reaching out to touch his hand where it’s pinching the pretzel together.

“Dean. You’re going to ruin the texture.”

Dean gives him a vaguely disbelieving look, but loosens his grip.

“It’s not a bad thing, though,” Samandriel assures him. “At least, I didn’t mind with Castiel. But he has such a _nice_ scent, don’t you think? It’s hard to get tired of it.”

“It really is,” Dean grits out and, predictably, starts smashing his pretzel again.

Honestly, for someone who enjoys food as much as Dean seems to, he can be an _incredibly_ careless eater.

“Anyway, the two of you really should go sometime,” Samandriel continues brightly, then turns thoughtful. “Although — it might be a little boring for Castiel, since he’s already done it with someone else.”

Something sour and unpleasant wafts from somewhere in the bakery, then, and Cas clears his throat.

“Samandriel. Has something been left in the oven?”

Samandriel blinks.

“No? I don’t think so.”

“Maybe you should go check,” Dean mutters, and Samandriel beams.

“Oh, no, there’s plenty of people back there, your highness. They’ll take care of it.”

Dean outright grimaces, and though Cas wants to believe that’s just a reaction to the increasingly foul smell in the air, he thinks he knows what’s going on here.

It’s a surprise, given how easygoing Dean tends to be, barring unusual circumstances, but Cas can relate. Samandriel’s cheerfulness and enthusiasm often exhausted him, when they were seeing so much of one another, and Dean is no doubt experiencing the same.

“Well, I think it’s too cold to drift in the harbor,” Cas interjects. “But we can certainly discuss our options. For now, though — I think I’d like to walk around town a little more.”

Dean straightens.

“Yeah? Sure, let’s do that. I can finish my pretzel on the way.”

Samandriel keeps smiling, clearly oblivious to Dean’s agitation.

“Oh, of course. I hope you enjoy yourselves.” He pauses, giving Cas a kind look. “Especially you, Castiel. Why, I’d hate for you to end up feeling like you just wasted your time on more of the same, or something like that.”

“I’m sure I- _Dean,_ ” Cas snaps, interrupting himself and reaching out to seize Dean’s wrist, appalled. “Stop it. You’re not going to be able to eat it, at this rate.”

“It’ll be fine,” Dean mutters, fist still clamped tight around half his remaining pretzel, and Samandriel laughs, loud and delighted.

Which — Cas is glad Samandriel is in such an unusually good mood today, but Dean clearly isn’t, and it’s turning out to be a terrible combination.

“To be fair, Castiel, that’s just the approach you have to expect from a prince. It’s hard to be delicate with things when you’ve never had to be.”

“Okay, that’s i—" Dean starts, jaw tight, and Cas squeezes his wrist a little tighter, frowning, because in addition to whatever’s gone awry in the kitchen, he thinks he can smell Dean’s _anger._

“Dean.”

Dean quiets, still glowering at Samandriel, who looks back with wide eyes, clearly surprised.

“I’m so sorry, your highness. Did I say something _wrong_?”

Which — Cas can see how Dean may have been offended by the words, but knowing Samandriel, he likely doesn’t realize how it came off.

“No, you’re alright,” Cas assures him, giving Dean’s wrist another squeeze, lest he think Cas will fail to rise to his defense, as well. “Dean can be very indelicate with food, but beyond that, he’s extremely delicate. You should see the way he handles my drawers.”

Samandriel’s mouth falls open, and beside Cas, the pretzel promptly tumbles out of Dean’s hand.

Cas watches it hit the ground with deep frustration, then sighs, giving Samandriel an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry for the waste, but — could we perhaps buy another one?”

Wordlessly, Samandriel reaches into the glass display.

In any case, Cas is fully prepared to further soothe Dean’s ego — despite his gross mishandling of the pretzel — but before he can offer any words of encouragement or affirm for him the occasionally grating effect of Samandriel’s uniquely cheerful disposition, Dean has a hand in his and is tugging him between buildings, drawing him deep into the narrow shade, far from view.

Cas glances around the tidy little alley, surprised by the quiet, this far from the street.

“Dean?”

He gives him a questioning look, but Dean doesn’t let go, and after a moment, the tightness in his expression softens to uncertainty.

It’s another long moment before he speaks.

“You — it sounds like you, uh. You had a lot of fun with the kid. Before.”

Cas blinks, at a loss.

“Sometimes? But — his company isn’t for everyone, Dean. It’s alright if you found him difficult.”

Dean looks frustrated.

“But you don’t,” he presses, and Cas frowns.

“I did, occasionally. Though he’s come a long way. Being in Sioux Falls has been good for him.”

Somehow, Dean looks even more upset.

“Right. Growing up to be a fine alpha, huh?”

“Well, yes?” Cas agrees, puzzled by the bitterness in his tone. Dean must have been more offended than Cas even guessed. “But he’s still young. There are many things he doesn’t quite grasp.”

“But you think he will.”

“I hope so,” Cas says cautiously. “Whatever small offenses he might commit — he has a good heart, and a great deal of consideration for others.”

Dean just looks at him for a long, unreadable moment, though there’s a hardness to his eyes Cas hasn’t seen in a long time.

And then he steps away, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Jesus, what am I doing?” Cas hears him mutter, and then he lifts his head, offering Cas a small smile. “Sorry. Where, uh. Where’d you wanna go next?”

Cas had been thinking about the bookshop, or even to sit by the fountain in Market Square, but presently, he doesn’t want to go anywhere, not until he understands what’s putting that look on Dean’s face.

“I meant what I said,” he tries, searching. “You’re very delicate with things.”

Dean just shakes his head.

“Thanks, Cas. I appreciate it.” He turns back toward the street with a nod. “Ready?”

It’s a clear dismissal, and Dean starts walking without waiting for a response.

Cas reaches for him without thinking, and Dean stops, glancing at the hand on his shoulder in surprise.

“Why are you unhappy?” Cas asks, studying him. “I don’t understand.”

Dean looks back at him for a moment, and then he huffs a laugh.

“Same reason I’m always unhappy, Cas. I’m an idiot. Don’t worry about it.”

Cas feels Dean begin to pull away, and he tightens his grip.

“No. You’re not an idiot. And Charlie said God looks after drunks and fools; if you were an idiot, it wouldn’t be causing you unhappiness.”

There’s a flicker of humor in Dean’s face, at that, but mostly, there’s just an uncharacteristic sort of seriousness, the kind Cas never liked and was glad to leave behind.

“That,” Dean says after a moment, and suddenly, he’s shaking Cas’s hand off and turning back, swiftly moving closer, intent as the distance between them disappears. “You say stuff like that, but you’re serious.”

“What else would I be?” Cas asks, baffled, and Dean sighs.

“Somebody else would say that because they were trying to be funny, Cas. But I don’t think you were.”

“I wasn’t.” Now isn’t really the time for jokes, Dean’s mood unsettling and the tension between them palpable.

“No. I know. But — I don’t always.”

“I don’t understand.”

Dean shrugs.

“Me, either. That’s the problem, man. I don’t always know what things mean to you. Not the way I do with other people.”

Cas hesitates, disconcerted by all this mention of other people, when other people should not matter.

He’s waited so long, it feels like, to understand Dean — to be understood by him.

To be known, perhaps.

It’s lonely — possibly even frightening — to think they don’t have that, after all.

“And I think the thing that scares me,” Dean continues, troubled, “Is that I’m not always sure you know, either.”

“I do,” Cas protests, and Dean’s brow knits.

“Do you?”

“Of course I do.”

Dean simply looks at him for a second.

Then, very gently, he reaches up to touch Cas’s cheek, and after one more long, inscrutable look, he just as gently tilts his head and presses his lips to Cas’s.

Cas flinches, not expecting it, but he recovers quickly, because this can’t be too much of a problem, if Dean is still kissing him. Dean kissing him has never been a bad thing, has never been something that happened for any other reason than softness and care and wanting between them — even when it didn’t quite start out that way, that first time — and he takes heart in it, reaching for Dean’s jacket and kissing him back.

Dean crowds in a little closer, touch firming, thumb stroking across the soft skin beneath Cas’s eye, and Cas leans into him, deeply comforted.

Dean can be so difficult, at times, but things like this — like the way he reaches out, touches Cas, breathes against him and meets every press of Cas’s lips like he knows exactly how Cas needs it — Cas trusts in that, instinctively.

Too soon, Dean pulls away, and when Cas reluctantly opens his eyes, Dean still looks troubled.

Cas hates it.

“What does that mean to you, Cas?” he asks quietly, and Cas hates that, too, because Dean’s questions are never clear, and even when they are, they never feel quite fair to ask.

He hesitates, unsure what Dean’s looking for, unsure what answer makes things okay again and what makes Dean turn away and withdraw, in that terrible way he tends to do.

“I’m not sure what you’re asking,” Cas finally tells him, and Dean swallows, nodding slightly.

“Sorry. What about — what does it feel like? When I kiss you?”

Again, Cas doesn’t know what to say, what to share and what to hold back, always caught in this awful balancing act, trying to make sure he doesn’t end up worse off than when he started.

“It feels good,” he says slowly. “Everything we do feels good. I — Dean, I just like being with you. You’re my best friend.”

That’s a safe answer, isn’t it? That, Cas can be sure of, and with that, Cas can affirm that Dean is always wanted and always appreciated, but without demands or expectations beyond simply being present.

Dean stills, expression strangely blank, and Cas waits.

“Yeah,” Dean eventually says, and for an instant, Cas swears he sees disappointment flash across Dean’s face.

But then it’s gone and Dean is smiling at him again, eyes soft.

“Always, Cas.”

And before Cas can worry any further, Dean is lifting his arms, wrapping them around Cas and pulling him close. Relief crashes over him, and he immediately returns the embrace, fiercely holding him back.

It was the right answer, he decides, burrowing into the crook of Dean’s neck, taking comfort in the strength of scent there, despite the lingering traces of upset. This — holding onto each other, promising _always —_ this is the most important thing, whether Cas fully understands or not.

“Please don’t drop your pretzel again,” he mumbles, and he feels Dean take a startled breath. “Or get grease on my jacket.”

Dean laughs, the sound vibrating through Cas’s chest and straight to his heart, and then he squeezes Cas tighter, though Cas can feel the hand clutching the pretzel lift away slightly.

“Alright,” he sighs, once he’s settled down. “Where to next, sweetheart? I think we’ve spent long enough lurking in an alley.”

Cas disagrees; to be honest, he thinks he’d like to be kissed again, still feels a strange need for reassurance — wonders if they shouldn’t even go home and retreat to Cas’s room, to more familiar territory as they regroup — but Dean held him and called him ‘sweetheart,’ a term that unequivocally signifies affection, to the best of Cas’s knowledge, and he supposes that will have to do for now.

He takes one last slow, deep breath, then pulls back to look at Dean, soothed by the fondness in his gaze.

“I thought we could sit by the fountain while you finished your pretzel. And then we could go to the bookshop.”

“Cooke’s?”

“The only other one I’m aware of is a small specialty store dealing in scientific manuscripts,” Cas says, and Dean laughs again, free hand reaching up to brush his hair back.

“Sounds good,” he agrees, and this time, when he turns to go, he offers his hand.

Cas doesn’t hesitate to accept.

They spend a couple of hours at least, in the bookshop, Cas seemingly content to wander hand-in-hand indefinitely, and Dean’s not sure which makes him more self-conscious; the way Cas browses one-handed, holding fast, occasionally glancing over and smiling in a way Dean finds utterly confusing to his instincts, or the way other patrons stare, curious and sometimes knowing, like they think they understand.

They don’t.

Dean forgot, somehow, that even if he _is_ courting Cas, after a fashion, it’s not in the way these people, so familiar with and enamored of his parents’ story, are going to assume.

He forgot that just because a twenty-five-year-old guy getting kissed for the first time, a twenty-five-year-old guy letting himself enjoy sexual _release_ for the first time, seems really into all of it — that doesn’t mean he’s into Dean, no matter how much he likes his company.

Because the truth is, it could be pretty much _anyone_ Cas liked and felt safe with, and as much as that’s a privilege Dean wouldn’t dare take for granted—

He thinks he knows where they stand now.

And regardless of how much fun they end up having when Dean comes to visit — regardless of whether or not Cas thinks he cares about things likes bites and marriage — that’s probably not going to change.

“Dean.”

“Hm?”

Cas tugs at his hand, squinting up at him.

“Sit. My arm is falling asleep.”

“What, you’re not done looking?”

Cas lifts his brows.

“No?”

Dean hums, dropping into a crouch beside him.

“Alright.” He nods to the book in Cas’s hand. “What’s that one about?”

Cas makes a face.

“Politics. Well, it’s a fantasy, but — politics, as far as I can tell.”

“Yeah? You gonna buy it?”

Cas shrugs, shifting his grip on Dean’s hand, though he doesn’t let go.

“I don’t really want to, but — if that’s what we’re going to be discussing during your visits, I probably should.”

“You don’t have to,” Dean protests, leaning back against the shelf. “Besides, I’m kinda hoping we’ll wrap that up soon.”

“Still.” Cas frowns at it. “I find it tedious, but — perhaps it’s more important than I thought.”

“True,” Dean says slowly. “But — for all you know, the author’s completely full of shit. You’re better off going to a library and checking out some nonfiction.” Dean squeezes his hand. “Buy a fun book you’ll actually wanna read again.”

Cas smiles slightly.

“I can’t know that. Honestly, this is why I usually leave empty-handed. I have doubts.”

“Library doesn’t carry this stuff?”

Cas sighs.

“Alas, it seems to be intended for business and research, more than anything.”

Dean frowns.

“Well, that’s not right. As much as books cost, that kinda puts the fun stuff out of reach for a lot of people.”

Cas tilts his head, studying him for a long moment, and Dean lifts his brows.

“What?”

“You could work on that,” Cas offers. “After you’ve established the safe houses. The women of Mills Park, at least, would be very, very happy.”

“Cooke won’t be,” Dean snorts. “Booksellers and authors can get kinda cagey when it comes to profits.”

Cas frowns.

“How would it affect profits?”

Dean shrugs.

“Why pay for it if you can read it for free?”

Cas looks thoughtful, turning back toward the shelf.

“Why pay for it if I don’t know it will be worth it?” he counters, free hand tracing the spines. “I doubt I’m alone in that. Besides — a poorly-stocked library doesn’t make me any more able to afford my own.”

“You’re not wrong,” Dean mutters, considering. Then he grins. “So — sure. Maybe when I’m done with the houses.”

Cas looks back at him, smiling.

And then he briefly glances around them, eyes sharp, and when he turns back—

He smoothly leans in and kisses Dean.

“So . . .” Dean starts, once they’ve made it back to Cas’s room and Cas has methodically lain him out on the bed, tucking in against him when he’s through as they settle in to wait for dinner. “There, uh. There’s something I kinda wanted to talk to you about.”

Cas goes still against him, tilting his head back to look at Dean in question.

“There is?”

“Yeah. I just — I think there are some things we should clear up, you know, make sure we’re on the same page.”

Cas nods slowly.

“Okay.”

“It, uh. It’s about the orgasms.” Which — part of Dean wonders if he should even be giving orgasms to a guy he has to explain them to, but since he definitely shouldn’t be giving them to a guy who _doesn’t_ fully understand them, he figures they should probably go ahead and talk about it, because _not_ giving them to Cas, when he’s all worked up and frustrated and wanting, seems like the worst sin of all. “Earlier, you — you seemed to have some weird ideas about them.”

Cas tenses.

“Sorry. I don’t have — I’m not—"

“No, that — sorry, when I say ‘weird,’ I just mean — things that hurt you, if you think that way.”

“Things that hurt me,” Cas repeats, unease turning to confusion. “How?”

Dean clears his throat.

“Just — you kind of made it sound like — when you talked about asking me for orgasms—"

Cas pulls away, sitting up, expression severe.

“I didn’t,” he interrupts. “I clearly stated I wouldn’t.”

Dean winces, propping himself up on his hands.

“Right. You, uh. You did. And if it makes you more comfortable if I’m not a part of that, then that’s fine.”

Cas hesitates, and Dean forges on.

“But if you like it — if you like me being part of that, for you, you can always ask, Cas. There’s not — there isn’t anything wrong with what you want or how often you want it. Even if I say no, that’s not a problem with you, that’s just about how I’m feeling.”

Cas looks away.

“Alright. Then you should decide. You can tell me when it’s time.”

Dean sits up all the way, ducking his chin to catch Cas’s eye.

Cas continues squinting at the pillows.

“That, uh. That’s not a good way to do it. It’s — stuff like this is better when everybody asks for what they want.”

“So you say,” Cas mutters, and Dean frowns.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cas just sighs.

“Nothing. Alright. Then — once every other visit. Does that seem reasonable?”

Dean huffs.

“Cas, you’re missing the point.”

Cas is quiet for a moment.

Then he shakes his head.

“No. I think _you’re_ missing the point, Dean.”

“Yeah? Alright, then _tell_ me.”

There’s a long silence, and then Cas’s jaw tightens.

“I don’t know about these things.” He takes a deep breath, finally meeting Dean’s gaze. “I don’t know what’s — normal. I know I’m not, and my body isn’t, and you — I suspect you aren’t normal, either, Dean, and I — I’m trying to look out for your interests, since you clearly won’t, but — I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

Which — honestly, Dean’s a little puzzled by a lot of this, definitely wants to ask in what way exactly Cas thinks Dean isn’t _normal,_ and even more than that, wants to point out that he can look out for his own interests just fine, but he decides he can figure it out later, because the most important thing right _now_ -

“Cas — that’s what I’m trying to _tell_ you. It is. I mean, if you want an orgasm every hour from morning to night, all seven days of the week, maybe you should see a doctor, but if it’s not interfering with the rest of your life — it’s _okay._ When you feel like it, you do it, and that’s all there is to it. There’s nothing to feel bad about. You, your body — even me, probably — it’s all normal.”

Cas huffs.

“Suppose that’s true. This isn’t — this isn’t just about that. This is about you. I don’t want you to think I’m going to—" Cas cuts off, frowning. “I don’t want you to think I’ll treat you dishonorably.”

Dean nods slowly, struggling to parse this, and then stops.

“Uh. What?” He blinks. What kind of orgasm is Cas asking for, here? Shit, maybe Cas knows more than Dean thinks, despite what he just said; he _does_ live with a bunch of women who’ve been married before. “Treat me — dishonorably? How, uh, how do you mean that?”

Cas gives him a miserable look.

“I don’t want you to to think every day will be like this morning. That I’ll — I’ll try to restrict you to my room so I can—" He swallows, voice quieting. “So I can take my pleasure from you, and do nothing else.”

Dean stares, wondering if he really understood that right. It _sounds_ like Cas is worried Dean’s going to think he wants to keep Dean abed for some kind of wild sex marathon, and while yeah, that’s gonna be tough, if Dean’s not getting off, it’s also gonna be _super fucking hot,_ and really, life is too short not to have the guy you’re in love with drag you to bed and spend hours exhausting himself repeatedly coming on top of you while you lie back and watch.

Cas abruptly withdraws a little, tilting his head, expression puzzled.

“Dean?”

“Right,” Dean says, wetting his suddenly dry lips. “Right, that — I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

Cas gives him a disbelieving look.

“Of course I have to worry about it.”

Dean coughs, rubbing his neck, which is starting to feel a little warm.

“Uh. No, actually, I — I really don’t think you do.”

Cas squints, exasperation clear.

“And this is why I have to worry. You won’t be honest wi—"

Dean swiftly leans in, palms settling on either side of Cas’s thighs as he brings them nearly nose to nose, and Cas’s eyes go wide.

A second later, his chin jerks up, nose bumping Dean’s as he inhales slowly, falling silent.

They breathe together for a moment, Cas’s breaths rapidly turning ragged, and Dean experiences a telltale thrill of satisfaction as his scent spikes between him.

“You want me to be honest?” he asks lowly, and after a moment, Cas nods, nose brushing over Dean’s again with the motion. Dean fights not to close his eyes, fights not to just ignore a conversation that’s going in circles and take what he wants, especially since he’s pretty sure there’s a time limit on how long he’ll have the opportunity, and somehow, he manages.

“Well. If I’m being honest, Cas — I really liked that part of today. I really liked it when you told me what you’d been thinking about, and what you wanted. And if I come back next time, and you want me to spend all my free time lying on this bed while you have as many orgasms as you can coax out of yourself — I’m really gonna like that, too.”

Cas inhales sharply.

“I . . . I don’t . . . I’m not going to do that.”

“Okay. Then don’t. But if you want to — all you have to do is ask.”

Cas goes quiet again, blue eyes blinking rapidly, sweetness curling through the air around them, unmistakably revealing and nigh irresistible.

Dean waits, hoping he won’t be called upon to test that.

“How . . .” Cas starts, then swallows. “How do you make me feel like this?”

Dean quells the rush of heat in his gut, smiling.

“I don’t, Cas,” he points out softly, and Cas shudders. “It’s just you, finally letting yourself.”

“And you?” Cas whispers. “You’ll let me?”

Dean smiles wider.

“Yeah, sweetheart. With pleasure.”

And that — that’s all it takes.

The words are barely out of his mouth before Cas is shoving him back and crawling over him, and before Dean can even register his surprise, Cas’s soft, chapped lips slot into place against his own.

This, Cas has decided, is not normal.

_Dean_ isn’t normal. Dean is the sort of man who repairs random women’s fences and lives off rainwater and treerats for a month, fighting roving bands of thieves along the way, and — unfortunately — coaxes respectable young women to do almost certainly disreputable things with little care for how their towns and fathers might enact retribution against him. He’s the sort of man who invents elaborate assassination plots and suspects you of witchcraft and hurls perfectly good pies at the ground before laying all manner of bizarre accusations at your door, only to turn around and take you into his bed and kiss you and kiss you and _finally_ , send you away unscathed. He’s the sort of man who says he has no right to you, when the only reason you’re even there is for him to use, and instead takes you for rides and picnics and weeds your garden and writes you horrible, infuriating letters calling you his best friend and wishing you well as though he never intends to see you again.

He’s the sort of man who sees you again anyway, who asks you what you want and then, inexplicably, tries to give it to you.

He _is_ , in essence, absolutely insane.

But Cas loves him, loves him with a vaguely alarming sort of fierceness and desperation, and if this strange behavior is in some unnatural, convoluted way _satisfying_ to Dean — well, then Cas will simply have to live with it.

Because Dean — Dean _lets_ him.

***

For the second time in a single day — because Cas isn’t normal, couldn’t possibly be, is shameless in mind and body both, as it turns out — Dean lies back and lets Cas fumble open his trousers while Dean carefully undoes his own and nudges the material aside to leave that glorious, smooth skin available for Cas’s use, and then tangles his hand in Cas’s hair and kisses his mouth and his neck and his shoulder while Cas curls over him and frantically thrusts his hardness against Dean’s skin, too overwrought to even bother hoping his slick doesn’t seep right through.

“Good,” Dean whispers against his neck, the words tickling hotly over the skin, over the red mark Cas is sure he’s left and equally sure will fade in hardly any time at all, a thought that leaves him tellingly disappointed. “So good, Cas.”

Cas shudders, rhythm stuttering as he tries to burrow into Dean’s shoulder.

“I don’t understand you,” he gasps. “How — how is this good, to you?”

Dean’s movements don’t falter, though, hands stroking Cas’s back, lips soft against his throat.

“How is it not?” he counters softly, and Cas swallows, heat ruthlessly crashing over him in waves.

“But you don’t — why don’t you ever take from me?”

At last, Dean stills, tensing underneath him, and Cas just barely forces himself to stop, too, waiting.

They lie there, pressed close and panting harshly, for so long Cas wonders if that was the wrong thing to say.

“Can I look at you?” Dean finally asks, quiet, and Cas hesitates.

That’s fair. It’s mortifying, the thought of Dean watching him, seeing what he’s doing, seeing the graceless, desperate way he seeks release — but if he takes nothing else, it’s hardly reasonable to deny him that.

Cas takes a deep breath, pulling away to look down at him, nerves dampening the fire in his veins.

“Alright,” he says, and Dean’s eyes immediately open, seeking out Cas’s.

He blinks, pupils wide and dark, and to Cas’s relief, his gaze drops no further.

Reassured, Cas sits back a little, searching Dean’s face for an answer.

“Why don’t you?” he asks again, so very conscious of Dean’s hardness pressing against his thigh, and Dean licks his lips.

“Because,” he says hoarsely. “If I touch you, it’s going to be because I’m giving you something. Not taking.”

The fire surges anew, and Cas shudders, desire sudden and unreasonable and no less eager to be voiced.

He shouldn’t. It’s a terrible burden, and he shouldn’t, but Dean’s hip against him doesn’t feel like enough, doesn’t feel like Dean touching him at all, and God, but Cas wants to ask.

“You already give me so much,” he tries, more for himself than for Dean, but Dean’s eyes narrow.

“I don’t give you enough.” Dean wets his lips again. “Not nearly enough. I don’t think I could.”

Cas draws in a breath, heart beating wildly between his ribs.

_Insane,_ he thinks, drinking in Dean’s face, ignoring the urgency coursing through him. _Perfectly insane._

“You want to give me more?” he asks, watching carefully, and Dean’s lips quirk.

“Yeah, Cas. I really do.”

Cas nods.

“Will you . . . will you put your hand around me, the way I do in my heats?”

Dean tenses underneath him, eyes widening.

“You really want that?”

Cas hesitates. Perhaps it will turn out to be uncomfortable, to have it be someone else’s hand, but-

“Yes,” he says, because for now at least, he thinks he does. And if he doesn’t, he can spare them both and tell Dean to stop. “Please.”

Dean goes rigid, at that, and in the next moment, he’s _looking,_ reaching down with purpose, and for a split second, Cas panics, anxiety overtaking anticipation.

And then Dean’s palm fits against him, fingers curling around his length, and he cries out, panic forgotten as he jerks into Dean’s grasp.

Dean stills.

“Okay?” he asks, and Cas nods frantically, gasping as Dean’s grip tightens.

“Y-yes. Yes,” he repeats, staring down at Dean with wide eyes, and Dean swallows.

“Can I move it?”

Cas nods, and then Dean’s hand slowly slides up his length, thumb moving to sweep over the wet head of Cas’s penis-

Cas spasms and collapses forward, moaning helplessly as Dean’s hand drags back towards Cas’s body, slicker than it started out.

“Yes,” he says again, a rough, broken sound against Dean’s chest. “Yes, Dean — please—"

Dean’s whole body twitches, but his hand doesn’t stop moving, just keeps twisting and sliding over Cas’s penis, and Cas can’t stop himself from jerking into every motion, desperate for more. He can feel how slick he’s getting, soaking through his pants as though he were in heat, but he doesn’t even care, just clenches with each wave and pushes into Dean’s fist, aching and wanting and struggling with a tight, frantic sort of dissatisfaction, even though Dean is _touching_ him, touching him with much greater skill than Cas possesses, his free hand tangling in Cas’s hair and pressing him into Dean’s chest as he whispers all those strange encouragements.

And then Cas feels it, feels that familiar coil in the pit of his stomach, feels the tension wind through him, feels the hot, almost unbearable urgency, dancing madly beneath his skin, and even though Dean’s hardly had a hand on him for any time at all-

He cries out, some dreadful combination of sob and groan he can’t be bothered to control, and spills into Dean’s wonderful, clever hand, trembling and thrusting weakly as Dean continues firmly stroking him, fingers digging into Cas’s scalp in a way that sends another shockwave rushing through him.

Cas doesn’t know how long it lasts, sparks behind his eyelids, body shaking with his pleasure, but when at last his thoughts return, Dean is tipping forward, clumsily pressing kisses to Cas’s hair and temple and ear.

“Cas,” he whispers, hot against Cas’s lobe. “Cas, can I—"

Cas nods, unconcerned for how the sentence ends.

“Yes — anything, Dean, anything—"

And then Dean’s rolling him, depositing him onto his back, and Cas braces himself, unsure what to expect but glad to provide it, whatever it happens to be, and as soon as Cas is lying flat—

Dean turns away, curling up half on his side, one fist clenched in the blanket as the other disappears toward his front, and Cas watches in a stupor as his hips start jerking in a fast, impatient rhythm, arm twitching as he gasps and pants into the pillow until Dean’s body suddenly locks up and he groans softly, head tipping forward as the muscles in his back go taut.

***

And as beautiful a sight as he makes—

Cas feels strangely bereft.

He waits, Dean still faced away and trembling beside him, and eventually, Dean struggles onto his stomach, turning his head, face flushed as his fist unclenches and he clumsily reaches for one of Cas’s hands.

“Sorry,” he pants, voice rough. “You were just — I couldn’t help it.”

Cas stares down at their joined hands, an awful feeling crashing over him.

“That’s fine,” he makes himself say, and when he glances up, the light in Dean’s face has dimmed, dismay taking its place.

But Cas can’t help it.

Dean’s hand on him felt — _astonishingly_ good.

Seeing Dean turn away from him to find his pleasure, though — that did not.

“We should clean up,” Cas mutters, tugging his hand free, both upset and angry at himself for _being_ upset. That was good — that was _wonderful —_ and then it wasn’t and he doesn’t understand why.

Dean is silent as Cas sits up and turns away, scooting to the edge of the bed and pausing to try and collect himself.

“Okay,” Dean finally says, voice strangely small.

And even though Cas wants to be held, the way he was earlier, to lie close, to have all the kisses that followed this morning and yesterday — even though he should at least say _thank you_ —

He can’t bring himself to look at Dean at all.

Dean fucked up.

Oh, _G_ _od_ , Dean fucked up, fucked up so fucking bad — he overestimated himself, somehow thought he was the friend that could do this for Cas, could help him figure out how to make himself feel good, help him figure out what he liked, what he might _want;_ but he couldn’t help it, was just so pent up and desperate and reeling from making Cas come, from getting a hand on him and watching him fall apart, and he thought as long as he didn’t do anything to _Cas_ , it would be okay, it wouldn’t be pushing or taking advantage or anything like that — but clearly, he was _wrong._

_Clearly_ , he ruined it for Cas, and now Cas is upset and Dean feels like a complete piece of shit and he should have just sucked it up and ignored his erection until it fell off and crumbled to dust, because no matter how good Cas felt, no matter how good Cas looked or sounded or anything else, Dean had no fucking right.

Because Cas _trusted_ him, and even if a part of Dean wondered if maybe Cas _would_ like more, would at least let Dean taste him, one way or the other, might even like Dean’s fingers, just a couple, when he was curled over Dean’s chest and rutting against him, slick dripping down — Cas didn’t ask for that. Cas seemed so pleased to just do what he was doing, and Dean was determined to forget everything else and let him do it, because that’s what Cas needed.

Except tonight, Dean _said_ he was all about giving, but he wasn’t, was he? Cas might not feel comfortable doing that at all, anymore, might be afraid that next time, Dean’s going to take from _him_ , whether he likes it or not, because _tonight_ , Dean made it pretty fucking clear he doesn’t have the self-control he promised, even if that promise was just implied.

There’s a faintly sour scent wafting from the other side of the table, and Dean’s pretty sure it’s not the food.

“Sorry,” he says, small and ashamed. “I, uh. I lost it, a little, there, but — I won’t do it again.”

“It’s fine. It’s not fair for you to get nothing out of it. I think anyone would agree with that.”

It’s clearly not fine. Cas’s mouth is tight, eyes resolutely fixed on his plate.

“No — I told you, it’s okay. I just — I, uh, I hadn’t — prepared for that. But I am now, and I swear I won’t. You — you don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’m not.”

“Cas—"

“Eat, Dean,” Cas interrupts, horribly stiff, and Dean feels sick.

He’s a cad, and in addition to Cas probably never trusting him again, with anything, he’s probably ruined sex for Cas forever.

No, Cas was probably never going to want Dean for a mate, unofficial or otherwise, but as much as he hates the thought of anybody else touching Cas like that, of _seeing_ him like that — after today, Dean knew it was bound to happen. And if he could, he should at least try and show Cas that the sex bargain wasn’t supposed to be a bad one just because you were an omega.

So much for _that_.

Anyway, Cas is clearly done talking, and Dean’s got no idea what to say, either, so when the plates are stacked and the dead, awful silence is stretching out between them, he does the only thing he can think of.

He excuses himself early.

“I just, uh, I don’t feel well,” he explains, when Cas narrows his eyes and asks — an understatement — hoping Cas will be too glad of the space to call him on it. “Probably the — the pretzel, or something.”

Dean can apologize in the morning, when the threat seems a little more distant and Cas has had time to process, and Dean has hopefully figured out what to even _say._

Cas looks at him for a long moment, and then he simply nods and sees him to the door.

And then, to Dean’s surprise, he gets a good night kiss.

Nothing soft and chaste, even, or sweet and wanting. Cas shoves him against the bedroom door and practically savages his mouth, and Dean’s so freaked out about the whole thing, he ends up having to turn away — that can’t possibly be a normal response to a negative sexual experience, can it? — and Cas gives him the shortest, most clipped good night he ever has.

Dean drives back to Bobby’s estate with his stomach in his shoes.

How the _hell_ is he going to fix this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sexual Content: After a discussion in which Dean reassures Cas that it is not abnormal to want a lot of orgasms, and that it is okay if he asks Dean for them when he wants them, Cas crawls on top of Dean and ends up rubbing against his hip, as he did earlier. Dean tells him it’s ‘so good,’ and Cas asks Dean how it can be good to him; he then asks why Dean doesn’t ever take from him. Dean asks permission to open his eyes and look at Cas, and when Cas grants it, Dean tells him that if he touches Cas, it’s going to be because he is giving him something, not taking. Cas asks Dean to touch his penis the way Cas does to himself during heat, and Dean obliges. Once Cas has orgasmed, Dean starts to ask for permission for something. Cas interrupts him to agree, telling him ‘anything,’ and after rolling Cas aside, Dean turns away from him to finish himself on his own.
> 
> Negative feelings following a sexual experience: After Dean turns away from Cas to bring himself to orgasm on his own, Cas is very upset without understanding why. His enjoyment from the encounter is significantly dampened, and it is apparent that he is still bothered throughout the evening. The bad feelings have nothing to do with anything Cas did or that was done to him, and are entirely a result of Dean turning away from Cas to have his orgasm.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: brief veiled reference to dub/non-con (the question is asked, but no dub/non-con happened), sort of discussion about body parts and gender including allusions to the fact that there’s not a lot of space in this society for things outside the ‘norm’ (clarification in the notes if you have concerns), light discussion about consent and the importance of enthusiastic consent (though those words aren’t used), sexual content (the explicit scene marked with *** at the beginning and end, though there is a bath scene you may opt to skip before that, summary/more detail in the notes for those who skip), please let me know if I forgot anything.

Cas sleeps poorly and wakes cranky, sullenly brewing coffee by candlelight while he waits for the sun to rise, and once he finally has his cup in hand, he retreats to the parlor to drink it.

Billie is already at the table, reading glasses on, and after a beat, Cas settles in across from her, moodily sipping from his mug while he stews over Dean’s hasty exit last night.

He barely even kissed Cas _back,_ before he left. Yes, Cas was in a foul mood, was struggling to find words that didn’t just taste bitter in his mouth, but — but that has nothing to do with good night kisses.

At least, it _shouldn’t_.

He huffs, glowering at the steam rising off the mug, air particularly cold this close to the window.

He knew asking for orgasms from Dean would only lead to trouble, even if he didn’t know enough to know what kind. There’s a reason most omegas don’t have penises, and that reason is that penises are a tremendous inconvenience for everyone involved.

And if men and alphas weren’t the ones with all the power to _cause_ that inconvenience without dealing with the repercussions themselves — well, they’d regret having them, too.

_A gift,_ Cas thinks with a snort. There’s no such thing, at least not for people like him. Clearly, Dean didn’t know what he was talking about.

Across from him, Billie clears her throat, lowering her book slightly.

“Good morning, Castiel.”

He suppresses a sigh, nodding at her.

“Good morning, Billie.”

“Is . . . everything alright?”

“Yes. Thank you,” he adds politely, and after a beat, she raises a brow.

He grimaces, looking back down at his coffee.

“No.” He hesitates. “Have you ever — been intimate with anyone?”

The other brow lifts.

“A little personal for five in the morning, Castiel.” She pauses. “Or any time.”

Nodding, he slumps a little.

“Yes. Sorry. I’m just — confused.”

She’s silent for a moment, and Cas supposes if she’s decided to return to her book, he can hardly blame her.

He’s _ridiculous._

“Confused,” she finally repeats, and he gives her a startled look, nose twitching as he registers a strangely sharp scent in the air, though Billie is probably the most even-tempered among them. “I hope his highness hasn’t been . . . unkind, to you.”

Cas pulls back a little, instinctively wary of the change.

He has no idea how to answer that.

“I don’t know,” he admits, lifting his mug. “I thought I knew how intimacy worked, but Dean keeps — he keeps telling me things, and letting me do things I don’t think he’s supposed to. At least, not if I don’t fulfill my obligations in return, but — he says he doesn’t want me to.”

Billie tilts her head.

“Obligations?”

Cas nods.

“Which — it’s certainly his choice, even if it’s a strange one, but — what he’s done for me is wonderful.” He stares into his coffee, letting the residual warmth comfort him. “I’d gladly let him do anything he wanted, but — he doesn’t. And last night, he finally did, and — and—"

He swallows, unable to continue.

He feels _ashamed,_ he realizes. He feels ashamed, and _bad,_ and like something wrong happened and it was somehow his fault.

Across from him, Billie takes a deep breath.

“Castiel?” she prompts gently. “Would you like me to get your sister?”

“No,” he says quickly, giving her a sharp look “No, she’ll probably tell me he was right.”

At that, Billie’s expression turns confused.

“I’m not sure I follow,” she says slowly. “What did he do?”

“He let me — a very good thing happened, for me,” Cas mumbles. “And he was — erect, and he pushed me off of him and turned away and—"

The words stick. Billie just watches him, waiting.

“By himself,” he finally manages. “He did it by himself. He didn’t even look at me.”

The omega tolerates the alpha’s attentions while the alpha achieves his pleasure. Castiel understands this. Yes, Dean has taught him that the omega is supposed to enjoy it, too, is given _kisses_ , is held and told nice things — at least with a good alpha, and Cas should, if anything, be relieved that he _gets_ to be with an alpha who doesn’t even want him to endure the other parts; that he gets to be with an alpha who only gives him the things that make _him_ feel good, an alpha who isn’t disturbed by Cas’s penis and encourages him to _enjoy_ the pleasure that comes from having it, despite the irregularity of it all.

But he’s not relieved, and it ruined all the good things for him, and past not feeling better this morning, Cas feels even _worse_.

“Ah.” Billie nods, relaxing in her chair. “And that bothered you.”

“Yes,” Cas mutters, shoulders drawing up. “Very much. I don’t understand.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she offers. “You were doing something together, and then he did it by by himself, instead of with you. A lot of people would be upset.”

Cas blinks.

“Yes,” he says, straightening. “Yes, and I — I do all of it with him. I don’t — I don’t turn away at the end. And he shouldn’t have, either.”

Maybe Cas _should_ be grateful Dean doesn’t want him to do other things in exchange, but he’s not. Cas would let Dean bed him, the way alphas bed omegas. He doesn’t expect to enjoy it, but some part of him still wants it, and not just for the kisses, because he gets as many of those as he wants.

_If I touch you, it’s going to be because I’m giving you something. Not taking._

Cas doesn’t just want to take, either.

He wants to give — but Dean doesn’t let him.

“I think,” Billie starts, wry. “You should talk to him about how you felt this morning.”

Cas looks down again.

“But — I’m afraid.”

“Of him, or . . .?”

Cas hesitates.

“Things — they haven’t always been good between us. We misunderstand one another — often.” He sets down his mug, troubled. “Apart from this, though — they’re good, now. Very good. And I don’t want to upset them.”

“Which would be fair,” she agrees. “But they’re not good, are they?”

He frowns.

“They are.”

“And yet, you’re unhappy this morning.”

He’s quiet, unable to deny it.

Billie hums, lifting her book again.

“Talk to him, Castiel. And if you keep feeling this bad after he calls on you — stop letting him.”

Cas blinks.

_That_ can’t be right.

“Believe me,” she adds dryly, before he can protest. “These things really aren’t as complicated as people like to make them.”

“Alright,” he agrees reluctantly. “Thank you, I suppose.”

“Of course,” she returns calmly, and when it’s clear she’s started reading again, Cas carefully drains his mug and heads back to the kitchen for another.

He has no idea what he’s going to say.

“Last night was bad,” Cas blurts out when he opens the front door, sky barely light over Mills Park, and Dean stiffens on the first step.

Cas grimaces immediately after, irritation plain, and Dean swears his internal organs all start to shrivel.

“I — I know,” he says quickly, ashamed. “I know, and I’m—"

“No,” Cas interrupts. “Let me speak.”

Dean shuts his mouth and Cas frowns, taking a deep breath.

“If I do everything with you — you should do everything with me.” He lifts his chin, something determined in his eyes, and continues severely, “You should not have turned away to have your orgasm, Dean.”

Dean’s pretty sure he hears Lucy cry, ‘Good heavens!’ from somewhere in the house, and no, maybe this isn’t an appropriate place to have this conversation, but Dean could care less about decency, because it sounds like—

“Wait, what? _That’s_ why you were upset? You wanted — you weren’t mad at me for touching myself? For coming?”

Cas’s brow knits.

“Coming where?”

Dean swallows.

“Uh — that’s another word for having an orgasm.”

“Oh.” Cas blinks, then shakes his head. “No. Why would I be? I would have been happy to let you do that at any time. You — you always said no.”

“Well, yeah. You didn’t want me to.”

Cas almost looks offended.

“I clearly invited you to do so.”

“I — I mean, _yeah,_ you did, but like — even now, you’re saying you’ll _let_ me. I don’t want you to let me.”

Cas goes silent, staring at him.

“I . . . you want to — force me?”

Dean recoils so hard he trips off the step, just barely managing to catch his balance one down.

“Jesus Christ, _no_!”

Cas gives him a lost look.

“Then what?”

“I want you to _want_ me to!”

“Oh.” Cas straightens, suddenly looking satisfied. “Good. I want you to.”

Dean brings a hand to his face, exasperated.

“Cas.”

“What?”

“Listen, you—" Dean abruptly stops, shaking his head. “Wait. Can we maybe — I don’t know, go inside? Or — more outside?”

“We’re not done talking,” Cas protests, and Dean huffs.

“Dude. I don’t even know who the hell can hear me in there—"

“Oh, don’t mind us, your highness!”

Dean sighs, and Cas turns slightly, glaring toward the staircase.

“Right. _Anyway,_ this is just — this is an awkward place to have it.”

Cas turns back, nodding.

“Alright. Breakfast is on the terrace.” Cas pivots, gesturing for Dean to follow, and Dean tries to pretend the whole goddamn staircase full of giggles and whispers doesn’t exist as he traipses past it, eager to escape into the cold early morning once again.

Cas firmly guides him to the bench Dean left, pushing him down by the shoulder with a vaguely stern look, and then shakes out a folded blanket beside him and puts one side around Dean.

Then he slides in next to him, effectively tucks them in together, and turns his head to face him.

“As you were saying,” he prompts, inches away, and Dean quickly shakes away thoughts of good-morning kisses, determined to see this conversation to its necessary finish.

“As I was _saying —_ wanting to ‘let’ me do stuff ‘cause you feel like you owe me isn’t the same thing as wanting it.”

“I don’t want to do it because I owe you,” Cas insists. “Though that would certainly be a fair reason.”

“Uh, no it i—"

“I want to do it because I want to see you feel good,” Cas snaps. “I don’t particularly care for pie, but I make it because _you_ enjoy it, Dean. I had nothing to do with Billie lending Max her books, but seeing _Max_ enjoy them made me happy. And Anna’s politics are enough to make me want to hide in the river until I’m forced to come up for air, but it pleases her, and for that, I will sit and listen.”

He takes a deep breath, giving Dean a frustrated look.

“And _you —_ you give to me, even when there’s nothing in it for you. You said you wanted to.” He lifts his chin. “Has it never occurred to you that I might be the same?”

It’s an absolutely valid, excellent, and even glaringly obvious point, and Dean—

Dean feels like a complete fucking moron.

“Oh.”

Cas gives him a sharp look.

“Do you understand?”

“I — yeah. Shit. Yeah, I think I do.”

Suspicious, Cas leans in a little closer, and now more than ever, Dean wants that fucking kiss.

“I want to be sure. Explain it back to me.”

Dean almost laughs.

“Just . . . taking from somebody, feels bad. Even if you don’t, uh, directly benefit from it, you want me to have an orgasm, too, because you — you care about me. And you don’t wanna be the only one feeling good when we’re together.

Relief floods Cas’s face, and he quickly nods.

“Yes. Good. Very good, Dean.”

Dean _does_ laugh, at that, though his hands are practically itching to reach out.

“Thanks. Sorry it took me so long to get there.”

Cas shakes his head, eyes earnest.

“Don’t be. I struggled to understand this as well.” He hesitates, then admits, “I had to ask someone.”

Dean snorts, bumping Cas’s knee with his own.

“No shame in it. Although—" He makes a face. “I hope you didn’t get into too much detail.”

“Detail?”

“About what we were doing.”

“Oh. No.” Cas shakes his head. “That seems like an awkward thing to share too much of.”

“I’ll say.”

“Besides,” Cas continues. “I don’t want anyone to feel bad that they can’t have orgasms.”

Dean nods along for a moment, then stops.

“Wait, what?”

Cas tilts his head.

“What?”

“They — who can’t have orgasms, now?”

Cas blinks.

“I — well, women. They don’t, um. They don’t have penises, Dean,” he adds, looking mildly concerned, and Dean just stares for a moment.

And then he bursts out laughing.

“ _Cas,_ ” he gasps. “Dude — buddy — that — women can _totally_ have orgasms. I’d bet my fucking life most of the ones you live with do all the time.”

Cas’s mouth falls open.

“They — what? But — how?” He blinks. “For that matter, _why_?”

“Because God’s not always a complete dick? Who the hell knows, Cas, and more importantly — who _cares_?”

Cas swallows, brow knitting.

“And you — you think they have them? Regularly?”

“Uh, yeah? Maybe some of the ones from up North don’t think they’re supposed to, but — yeah, Cas. I’m pretty sure they do.”

Cas just looks stunned, and Dean can’t help it.

He laughs harder.

“Dean,” Cas says after a moment, irritated. “Dean, it isn’t funny.”

“I — yes it is! You thought girls didn’t have orgasms!”

“What else was I supposed to think?” Cas snaps. “My orgasms happen in my penis, Dean.”

His expression suddenly slackens.

“Do — do some of _them_ have penises?”

And Cas is _so_ serious, so sincere, Dean’s laughter sort of stumbles and dries up, unable to continue in the face of his awed earnest.

“I – uh.” Dean blinks, straightening as he searches for the words. “That - well. So – so I can’t really answer that, ‘cause it’s pretty rude to go around asking, but - it’s probably safe to say most of them don’t? I mean – I’m not gonna try and tell you these things are fixed, any more than I’d say all omegas are women, or that all alphas are men, but . . . yeah, probably not. And if they do, it’s not – you know, they’re not gonna advertise. Kinda like – _you_ go new places, people’ll just assume you’re a beta, right? There’s a lot of ways to be, but people tend to just . . . default to what they see the most of, and they can get a little weird about anything that goes outside of it.”

“Oh.” Cas nods, brow thoughtful. “Alright. I suppose – if _I_ have a penis, and it’s still normal – well, according to you - I don’t know why a woman couldn’t.”

Dean smiles slightly.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, basically.”

“But, Dean,” he continues, still looking frustrated. “That doesn’t address the issue.”

Dean just sort of looks at him.

“What issue?”

Cas’s lips press together.

“Without a penis, how do girls have _orgasms_?”

Dean chokes out another laugh, but Cas just gives him an unimpressed look, waiting.

Dean coughs.

“Sorry. Uh. So - you’ve got a penis, and it feels good when you touch it a certain way, right?”

“Right. Although—" Cas looks down, swallowing. “Not as good as when you were touching it.”

“Oh.” Dean blinks. “That — awesome. Thank you.”

Cas simply nods, still not quite meeting his eyes, and Dean clears his throat.

“Anyway — girls usually have different stuff, and when they do things to it, they can get all the good feelings, too. Just — none of it, uh, sticks out or changes size like a dick does, and they don’t really make a mess as often, either.”

Cas looks down at their blanket covered laps, visibly intrigued.

“That sounds . . . convenient.”

Dean grins.

“It does.” He pauses. “And - that can be a gift, too. Just a different one.”

Cas nods, falling quiet for a moment.

“Your other omegas,” he says suddenly. “You gave them orgasms, didn’t you?”

It takes Dean a moment to catch up, but when he does, he grimaces.

“I — well, yeah, Cas. Of course I gave all the _people_ I slept with orgasms. It’s kind of rude to take somebody to bed and not give them one.”

Cas looks startled.

“It is?”

“Uh, yeah. Otherwise, there’s nothing in it for them.”

“Yes, there is,” Cas protests. “There’s — there’s being held, and kissed, and — and close, and—"

Cas cuts off, freezing, although Dean’s stomach is doing a pretty embarrassing sort of fluttery thing at just how much stock Cas apparently puts in all the other stuff.

But then Cas scowls.

“I was rude.”

“Huh?”

“Why did you let me be rude?” he demands.

“I — you weren’t rude.”

Cas looks incredulous.

“You _just_ said—"

Dean winces.

“Okay, yes, I — I did say that, but — well, _you_ just said the other person gets other stuff! So — so I was _wrong_!”

Somehow, Cas doesn’t seem impressed, and Dean endures another terrible moment of suspicious squinting before Cas sighs, turning toward the food.

“I’ll try to hurry home from work. Please have my bath ready.”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“I want plenty of time to give you an orgasm.”

“Of c—" Dean starts, but then the words actually register. “Oh. Um. Awesome. And, uh. I . . . I can give you one, too — right?”

The next look is almost _withering._

Dean’s legs feel a little like jelly, anyway.

“ _Obviously_.”

“Hey, I just wanted to make sure.” Dean reaches for the plate, trying not to grin like an idiot. “I’m, uh. I’m looking forward to it.”

This time—

Cas smiles.

It feels like the longest work day of Cas’s _life._

He does his best to hurry, to the point where one of the Mr. Smiths calls out a warning to mind his back — “Once you hurt it, it’s never the same again!” — and barely takes a moment to eat his sandwich and listen to the others’ conversation before he excuses himself to get back to work. It’s hard not to think about Dean, about the things Dean has done to him, about what might happen later, about how he’s going to _feel_ about all of it, but Cas knows just how much such thoughts can slow him down, and for the most part, he manages to control his focus.

And even though Mr. Dryer dismisses him at a quarter till three, and Cas makes it back to Mills Park in record time—

He still feels like it’s been _days_ since he saw Dean that morning.

“Shit, you’re early,” Dean says, encountering him at the door upon his own arrival, and Cas nods, wondering if it’s appropriate to kiss him. Previously, Cas wouldn’t have hesitated, but Dean tucked the blanket up high around them and kissed Cas for longer than he probably should have before they parted that morning, and since _something_ is going to happen after the bath, the sort of something Cas is reasonably confident always involves kisses—

Is he supposed to wait?

“I’ll help you carry the water,” Cas says, staring hard at Dean’s face, just in case it holds an answer.

Dean looks back, bemused.

“Okay. Uh. Is something on my face?”

“No.” Cas hesitates, searching for an excuse, even as he keeps looking. “You’re just . . . very handsome today.”

Dean’s brows lift.

“Oh.” He licks his lips, then grins. “What, I’m not handsome every day?”

“You are,” Cas assures him, subtly shifting closer. “It’s troublesome.”

“Troublesome?”

“It’s distracting. I think of you often, when I’m supposed to be focusing on other things.”

Dean swallows, green eyes blinking in a strangely appealing fashion.

“Oh,” he says again, and Cas waits, trying not to be too hopeful.

Abruptly, Dean ducks his chin, clearing his throat.

“We — we should hurry, so I can get you in the bath.” He sucks in a breath. “I mean — help you — make sure you get the — the bath you want. Because you want a bath. The bath is for you.”

Cas nods slowly, reaching for the door handle.

“Yes.”

Dean nods back while Cas pushes it open, and when Cas gestures him through, he pauses on the threshold.

“Just . . . just so you know, I — uh. I . . .”

He trails off, giving Cas an inscrutable look.

And then he suddenly reaches out, gripping the front of Cas’s waistcoat, and presses in for a hard, thorough kiss that has Cas’s entire body lighting up with pleasure.

“I think about you all the fucking time,” Dean says breathlessly, when they finally pull apart, and then he turns and hastily shuffles toward the kitchen.

Cas follows, utterly unable to help his grin and not even bothering to try.

It’s unfortunate, Cas decides, that Dean can’t kiss him while he bathes him.

Dean is beet red, breaths a little unsteady as he moves the cloth over Cas’s skin with trembling hands, and as strangely eager as Cas is to be finished with the bath so they can move on to other things, he’s mostly just content to sit there and watch him, relishing in the slow, wet slide of the cloth, in the strength and warmth of Dean’s hand through it.

“Are you cold?” he asks, and Dean swallows.

“Uh, no. No, I — I’m good.”

“Good,” Cas says, and it is. He was reasonably confident, when he politely insisted Dean take off all of his clothing to bathe Cas, that being dry would prevent Dean from catching a chill, but he still would have felt bad if he’d been wrong.

Anyway, Dean doesn’t look cold. There’s a rosy sort of flush along his skin, despite his distance from the fire, and Cas congratulates himself on having made a very good decision indeed.

Still . . .

“Your hands are shaking, though.”

Dean pauses, cloth resting atop Cas’s knee.

“Yeah. I, uh. I’m nervous.”

“Nervous?”

“And a little turned on.”

Heat darts through Cas, sly and giddy, and he shifts a little in the tub, flinching in a vaguely nice-feeling way when Dean instinctively grips his knee in response.

“Turned on,” Cas repeats, trying not to smile. “You really enjoy bathing me?”

Dean gives him a sidelong look.

“Dude. You know I do.”

Cas lifts a shoulder.

“Things can change,” he points out, though he’s very glad this thing hasn’t.

Dean licks his lips, though Cas can see traces of a smile on them, and starts moving the washcloth over the ridge of his shin.

“Well, trust me, I enjoy bathing you.”

Cas finally lets his own smile free.

“I enjoy you bathing me.”

Dean stops again, suddenly looking thoughtful.

“Yeah. You should. That’s important.”

Cas cants his head, puzzled.

“What are you nervous about?”

Dean’s expression clears, and he shrugs.

“What happens after this.”

“Oh.” Cas nods, briefly looking away. “I am, too.”

“It doesn’t have to happen,” Dean offers, moving on to his foot. “It’s — you know. Whatever you want, Cas.”

“I want it to,” Cas says slowly, then hesitates. “Just . . . how will I do it? For you?”

Again, the cloth stills.

“Oh. Uh. We . . . we can talk about that. About what’ll make you comfortable.”

Cas nods, though he can’t quite shake the uncertain feeling.

“I’ll do anything you want, Dean,” he reminds him.

And he will, no matter how nervous he might feel over it.

Dean sighs, shifting the washcloth to the other foot and carefully scrubbing between his toes.

“I don’t want you to do anything _I_ want, I want you to do something _you_ want.”

“What about what _you_ want?”

Dean gives him an unimpressed look, sliding around to his calf and up toward his knee.

“Okay, then I want you to do something _both_ of us want. Happy?”

“No,” Cas says honestly, frowning. “I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what there is.”

At that, Dean looks almost _disturbed,_ but then he sort of shakes his head, taking a breath.

“Right. Uh. Like I said, we’ll talk about it.” He offers Cas a small smile. “Think you’re just about done here, if you wanna let me do your hair.”

“You didn’t get everything.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Half a leg, Cas. I said _about_ done.”

Cas doesn’t answer for a moment, gaze flicking to where the cloth has just begun its descent down his other thigh.

“More than half a leg,” he finally says. “If you, um. If you would.”

For a second, Dean looks confused.

And then his eyes widen.

“Yeah. Of course.”

It feels like forever that Dean lingers over his thigh, cloth dipping beneath the water to gently scrub at the sensitive underside, and Cas holds his breath when he circles back around to get the top, well-aware of what comes next.

He’s still not quite prepared for it, though.

“Oh,” he breathes out, hips twitching as the cloth wraps around him. “It — that’s different. Than when I wash myself.”

Dean nods.

“Lot of things will be,” he says, some rough, pleasant texture to his voice. “Are you usually hard when you wash yourself?”

“No. But — last time you bathed me, I was. It’s still different.”

Dean licks his lips.

“Still good different?”

“Yes,” Cas murmurs, struggling not to move into Dean’s grip. Technically, this is just a bath. “Very good.”

Dean’s still for a moment, hand just a warm, pleasant pressure around him, and then he slowly slides it up.

Cas’s heart pounds within its confines, and he grips the edge of the tub a little tighter.

_Sexy torture,_ he thinks faintly. He loves it and hates it all at the same time, which he supposes is the point.

Dean passes the cloth over him several more times than Cas would have, and certainly more times than is _necessary,_ but Cas just holds his breath and doesn’t complain until Dean moves it lower, giving him a barely audible instruction to lift his hips.

“Just through the cloth,” Cas manages. “Don’t — please be careful.”

“Of course,” Dean murmurs, and a moment later, the cloth slips between his legs, efficiently going over his balls and moving on, a brief but firm pressure sliding along his posterior before it presses into the divide.

It feels remarkably _good,_ to Cas’s surprise, and he can’t quite suppress a small sound of pleasure.

In response, Dean freezes.

“Okay?” he asks.

Cas shakes his head, fumbling his hand into the water to push Dean’s hand away and shakily settling back when it’s gone, his legs seeming to press together of their own volition.

“No,” he mutters, face hot. “That’s not a good idea.”

Dean studies him for a moment, then nods, setting aside the washcloth.

“Sorry,” he says softly, touching Cas’s knee, and Cas gives an embarrassed shrug.

“It’s fine. Just — I — my hair. I’d like you to wash my hair, please.”

Dean nods, rising up on his knees to move to the back of the tub, and with the motion, certain things come into view, state unmistakable.

Cas’s face grows even hotter, a dull throb in his groin as his gaze sticks on it.

He wonders what Dean will do, if Dean will rub against Cas, the way Cas has done, if Dean will want him to put his hand on it, or if the evening will end with Cas faced away, Dean pressing in behind him.

He thinks of the touch of the cloth to his rear, of the way it felt, dipping between him slightly, and his whole body tenses, something strange sitting in his gut.

He startles when Dean clears his throat, glancing up at him, but Dean is already disappearing from view, settling in at the back of the tub.

A moment later, there’s warmth at his temple, Dean’s mouth brushing softly against it.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “Don’t worry about it.”

Cas swallows hard, nodding.

He’s a little worried, but more than that, he’s something he can’t quite explain, and somehow, it’s making him even more nervous.

He flinches when he feels Dean hand brush his hair.

“You need to get it wet, Cas.”

Cas nods stiltedly, surprised his heart doesn’t leap right out of his chest, and silently slips beneath the water.

Dean’s fingers touch his forehead when he emerges, smoothing back the dripping curls and gently catching the droplets before they can slide into Cas’s eyes, and a shiver ripples through him, as though the room is too cold, after all.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and Dean’s thumb traces the back of his ear, horrible and wonderful and too small a touch for the feeling that moves throughout his entire body when it does so.

“Sure.”

He shuts his eyes and listens as Dean picks up the shampoo, the slick, sticky sounds of his hands coating one another a strange accompaniment to the crackle of the fire, and Cas can feel the air move when he’s done, signaling those hands’ return to Cas’s head.

Cas lets it drop toward the left side of the tub, trying not think of what Susan said about baring.

He just wants to make it easy for Dean to wash his hair, is all.

There’s a sharp intake of breath behind him, but a moment later, Dean’s fingers are slowly pushing into his hair, spreading wide and lightly pressing into Cas’s scalp as they begin drawing small circles through it. Cas squirms a little in the tub, shoulders drawing tight as Dean’s fingers work over him, and Dean leans down, breath hot against Cas’s ear.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“No,” Cas breathes out, the edge of the tub pressing into his cheek as he angles even further away, the pads of Dean’s fingers tracing his hairline, wet and soapy against the skin just beyond. “What am I doing?”

Dean’s hands slow, barely moving, and then those short, warm breaths touch the column of Cas’s throat.

And then his lips touch the skin, and Cas’s stomach tightens, body twitching.

“You’re going to get soap in your mouth,” he protests weakly, and Dean hums, hand sliding back before his fingers abruptly tighten in the wet tangle of curls at Cas’s crown.

“I really don’t care,” he says, and then his mouth closes over the juncture of Cas’s neck and shoulder, tongue sweeping across the damp skin before his teeth lightly start to tug at it, and Cas jerks so hard the water splashes out of the tub.

There’s a soft growl against his throat, a sound that goes straight to Cas’s core, a wave of heat and baffling emptiness dispersing after it, and Dean’s hand tugs his head back a little further.

It’s just his neck, he tells himself frantically. Just Dean’s mouth on his neck, a particularly pleasing kind of kiss, and Dean’s hands in his hair, innocently scrubbing; there’s no reason to become so worked up that the memory of Dean’s flesh against Cas’s hardness nearly pales in comparison.

“Okay?” Dean whispers, and Cas blinks his eyes open, the ceiling an offensively bland sight, given what he’s feeling.

“Yes,” he pants. “Okay.”

Dean kisses his neck again, and to Cas’s relief and disappointment both, he moves away, gently guiding Cas’s head straight as he begins lathering the shampoo through the rest of it.

Cas takes the opportunity to try and collect himself, swallowing down a host of embarrassing sounds at the feel of Dean’s fingers gliding through his hair, Cas’s head practically cradled in his hands.

“Sexy torture,” he mutters helplessly, and behind him, Dean goes still.

And then he laughs, long and loud, and a moment, later, Dean is turning Cas’s head and catching his lips in a kiss.

Cas can’t help it. He groans, fumbling a hand up toward Dean’s face, desperate just to touch him.

“Hurry,” he gasps against Dean’s lips. “Finish washing my hair, I don’t — I want—"

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, rough against his lips, and then he’s pulling back again, nudging Cas toward the right side of the tub as he ducks down, almost certainly tasting soap as he seals his lips over the newly exposed side of Cas’s throat, teeth a little more insistent when he nips at the skin.

Cas moans, squirming in the water, and Dean reaches to grip his shoulder, clumsily massaging the shampoo through his hair as he lavishes attention on Cas’s neck.

“Shouldn’t be doing this,” Dean mumbles, mouth hot. “So bad, Cas.”

“No, it’s good,” Cas insists. “It — it’s very good — please, don’t stop—"

Dean sucks in a breath, and then groans.

“God — you smell fucking _incredible_. Always do, but right now — fuck, Cas—"

And then his mouth is latching back onto Cas’s neck, fingers rubbing clumsy, irregular patterns through his hair, and Cas endures the overwhelming onslaught of pleasure for no more than five seconds before he suddenly lurches forward, shaking Dean off.

“It’s clean,” he declares roughly, and without waiting for a response, slides into the water so fast it goes crashing over the edges once again, a mess that _should_ be cleaned up promptly but will be lucky to have a towel thrown down to absorb it, and the moment he’s done with his rushed, halfhearted rinse, he scrambles to his feet, turning away as he rises so Dean won’t have to see his back.

“Towel,” he commands, and Dean stares up with wide, dark eyes for a moment, lips parted.

And then he swiftly stands, striding toward the hooks on the armoire, and it’s all Cas can do to stay put and watch the play of muscles in Dean’s back and legs, in his _buttocks,_ as he crosses the room and seizes the towel.

“Out,” Dean says as he starts back toward Cas, eyes intent. “Do you want a nightgown?”

Cas nearly trips stepping out of the tub, catching the towel as Dean tosses it to him and heads for the trunk by the bed.

“I — are you going to ask me to turn over?”

Dean stops in his tracks, throwing an inscrutable look over his shoulder.

“Not if you don’t want to.”

Cas swallows, hesitant.

“Then no. I don’t want a nightgown.”

Dean licks his lips, and it takes all of Cas’s willpower to tear his gaze away and focus on drying off.

He does a poor job, water droplets still clinging to his skin when he’s through, but the bedding should dry the rest and the moment Cas has carelessly flung the towel down on the worst of the spilt water, he approaches the bed, looking to Dean for instruction. Dean’s already leaned back against the pillows, just looking at Cas, eyes dark and strange, and Cas decides he doesn’t need instruction after all.

He clambers onto the bed, crawling toward Dean, and when Dean sits forward, arms open, Cas hesitates.

Dean is unclothed, per Cas’s request, and as Cas noted earlier, he’s also still hard.

Cas remembers the night of the festival, the last time they both lay bare like this, and suddenly, he feels — _shy._

“Um,” he starts, eye inexplicably drawn back to Dean’s penis, to something different than Cas’s own, something that he hadn’t noticed before and struggles to look away from now. “I — I, um. I . . .”

“It’s okay,” Dean says softly. “You, uh. You can look at me, if you want.”

“Oh. That — that’s different. Than what you said, before.”

“Yeah. I, uh, I felt a little embarrassed then. About you seeing me. And — I — when you look at me, it makes me — it turns me on.”

Cas enjoys Dean looking at him, too, though he’s not sure he’s ready for Dean to examine him as closely as Cas finds himself examining Dean.

“I don’t have that. At the end of your — I don’t remember, um. Seeing it before.”

Strangely, Dean colors, shifting a little in front of him.

“Yeah. That — I — sorry, it just — that’s my, uh. My knot. Alphas have them. And when we — well, when we get really, really turned on, it kinda . . . swells up.” He looks a little guilty. “I don’t — I don’t expect you to do anything about it.”

Cas gives him a lost look.

“What would I do?”

Dean quickly shakes his head.

“Nothing. Just ignore it.”

Cas frowns.

“Dean.”

“Later. We’ll talk about it later.”

Which—

“You said that earlier. That we’d talk about what we were going to do.”

For some reason, Dean relaxes.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think we should, but actually — I also — there’s some other stuff. And maybe we should have talked about it sooner, but I don’t — this is kind of, uh, different for me, and I’m just — I’m still trying to figure out what I should be doing.”

“What you should be doing?”

Dean shrugs.

“So I don’t let you down.”

Cas lets this sink in, then scoots a little closer, knee brushing Dean’s thigh.

“How would you let me down?”

For a moment, Dean doesn’t answer, and then he reaches out, gently wrapping his hand around Cas’s.

“This kind of thing, with all the . . . kissing and touching, I guess. Having orgasms together. That’s new for you, right?”

Cas lifts his brows.

“Obviously.”

Dean smiles, squeezing his hand.

“And . . . the first time you do all those things, it — it’s really important that they happen the right way, or else it can make you — you can end up feeling bad, later, and it can ruin stuff for you that you should have been able to enjoy. Does that, uh. Does that make sense?”

“I’m not sure I follow?”

Dean nods, looking pained.

“Just . . . like, if I touched you in a way you didn’t want, or that you weren’t ready for, and I didn’t stop — you could feel lousy for a long time. Or you might not be able to enjoy it when you normally _would_ have been ready for it. Or — or you might even start to hate all the other touching, and then — you wouldn’t enjoy anything.”

“That sounds . . .complicated.”

“Yeah, no, it — it is, it can be really complicated, but it’s a thing, and it happens a lot, and I don’t want you to end up there. I want — I always want everything you do, everything someone else does to you, to feel right. To be something you just — feel good about. Okay?”

Cas smiles, because that, he definitely understands.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Dean looks relieved, his other hand joining the first, clasping Cas’s between them.

“Yeah. Of course. Because anybody who you let touch you — they should want that, too.”

Cas can’t quite help a frown at that, at the thought of others, when he and Dean are hand in hand, Cas still worked up from a terrible wealth of sexy torture and equal parts nervous and anticipatory over what follows now.

“I don’t want anyone else to touch me.”

Dean swallows.

“Okay. But — you might.”

Cas resists the urge to tug his hand free.

“Is that all you wanted to say?” he asks, wary of pursuing either the line of conversation or thought. He appreciates Dean’s feelings about the matter, but the rest of it is unpleasant and not relevant, besides.

He hopes it never will be.

“Not — not quite. Um. So . . . like, we probably should have had this conversation sooner, but — before we do anything else, there’s a couple of things we really need to talk about.”

Cas hesitates.

“Now?”

“Well, yeah. They’re about this.”

“Alright.” If they must, he supposes. “What are they?”

“Just — first of all, we — or I guess — when you do things like this with someone, whatever you and I do, or you and them do — it’s supposed to feel good for both people. The whole way through. Okay?”

Cas doesn’t answer for a moment, troubled both by this persistent mention of others, and by the unfortunate and obvious flaw in Dean’s logic.

Dean continues before he gets a chance to point it out.

“So if what we’re doing doesn’t feel good to one of us, we stop. You tell me, or I tell you, and we don’t do it. Even if you think you don’t _mind_ it, even if you think you want me to get something out of it and you don’t care if _you_ do or not — that’s not how these things work. You don’t ever _let_ someone do something, Cas; you do something _with_ someone, and it makes you both feel good. And if it doesn’t, and you want to do it anyway, that’s something you have to talk through with your partner and make a decision on, but — for me, if you let me do something? Even if you don’t _dis_ like it — if you’re not enjoying it, I’m gonna feel bad, and I’m gonna regret the whole thing. Alright?”

Cas quickly shakes his head, frowning, pleasure from the bath rapidly settling.

“But you let me . . . you’ve let me do things, and you didn’t enjoy them.”

Dean’s brows lift.

“Woah, woah — who said I didn’t enjoy them?”

Cas stares.

“Apart from last night, you never — you didn’t—"

“I don’t have to,” Dean interrupts. “I enjoyed them, Cas, a whole hell of a lot. I went home afterward, that first night, and it was all I could think about. And I enjoyed thinking about it, too.”

Cas wonders then, if Dean enjoys thinking about it the way that Cas enjoys thinking about it, the way Cas was a little astonished at himself for being quite so preoccupied with in the first place.

“I’ll tell you if I’m not enjoying something,” Dean continues. “But you’ve gotta tell me, too. Like you did this morning. If you aren’t feeling _good —_ not just ‘not bad’ — I don’t want any part in it. Got it?”

Slowly, Cas nods. He’s a little wary, given his suspicions about the difference between alphas and omegas and what they probably enjoy, but Dean _is_ strange, so perhaps his pleasure will lie more in accordance with Cas’s than Cas expected.

Besides; if Dean says it’s important — then Cas trusts that it’s important.

“Okay. I will.”

“And — asking about how girls have orgasms, or what the hell my knot is — that’s important, too. Even if we’re, uh, right in the middle of things, kinda like we were today — if you’ve got something to say, or something you wanna ask, do it.”

Cas nods again. He _does_ like being able to ask questions.

“Alright. That all sounds reasonable.”

Dean smiles, then, tugging on Cas’s hand a little.

“Okay. Do you still want an orgasm?”

Cas quickly nods, and Dean laughs, flopping back against the pillows.

***

“Awesome. Me, too, if you’re up for it.”

“I am.” Cas pauses, still thinking about questions, and on impulse, he moves away a little, reaching for the nightstand drawer with his free hand. “Just — one moment.”

Dean’s looking curious when Cas finally fishes out the blue glass bottle, and the look turns to surprise when he lays eyes on it.

“I, um. I’m not sure what you had in mind,” he starts awkwardly, holding it out. “For when I gave you your orgasm. But — I have this. If we need it.”

Dean stares.

“Is that . . .”

“I’m not sure what it is,” Cas admits, pressing it into Dean’s palm. “But Susan’s barkeep said it was important.”

Dean looks torn between embarrassment and amusement.

“It, uh. It can be. We’ll see what happens.” He clears his throat, setting it beside him, and smiles again, cheeks flushed. “So . . . are you all set?”

Cas nods, crawling back toward him, and after a beat of hesitation—

He shifts one leg over Dean’s thighs, flinching at the touch of warm skin against his own, and settles in.

Dean inhales, sharp, and Cas offers him a small smile, his own pulse racing, excitement and uncertainty driving it on.

“Is, um. Is this okay?” he asks, the way Dean tends to do, and Dean swallows.

Then he lifts his arm.

“Can I . . . can I get you a little closer?”

Cas considers this, incredibly conscious of what that will probably mean, but eventually, he nods.

And then he carefully moves forward, and just as carefully, lowers himself into Dean’s arms.

“Try not to touch my back,” Cas whispers, a little worried, and after a beat, one arm wraps high up around his shoulders, the other looping around his hips, partially over his rear.

It’s shocking, in the best of ways, and Cas curls forward into Dean with a shudder.

Dean just sighs.

“Perfect,” he murmurs.

“What is?” Cas whispers, and Dean hums, hands squeezing Cas’s shoulder, his hip.

It feels good, and Cas wonders if he should say when things feel good, too.

“You and me. I told you. We feel perfect.”

“Oh.” Cas doesn’t have anything to compare it to, but he can’t imagine wanting to bother, can’t imagine ever having to worry about the other people Dean wanted to reference, because— “I think so, too.”

Dean sighs again, and then he’s shifting, pulling back slightly, and Cas lifts his head to look at him.

Dean is smiling.

“Okay, sweetheart. I was thinking — I’m gonna get us both wet, okay?”

“Wet?”

“You don’t ever get yourself wet when you touch yourself?” Dean asks, looking surprised, for some reason.

“No?”

“Gee. I figured that’d be one of the perks to being an omega dude.”

Cas tilts his head.

“I don’t understand.”

Dean lets go of him, reaching out to grab a little bottle.

“I’m pretty sure this is oil. I’m gonna put it on our, uh. Our —" Dean bites his lip, and then he snorts. “Our dicks, Cas. And it’s going to make what we’re doing feel better.”

“Alright.”

“But it doesn’t have to be oil. Slick works, too.”

“Slick?” Cas lifts his brows, pulling back a little and flinching when his penis brushes against Dean’s skin. “How would you . . .”

“How would I, or how would you?”

Cas swallows.

“How would you?” he whispers, and Dean licks his lips.

“Well, I’d touch you. Where you were slicking. And when you got my fingers all nice and wet — I’d put them on us.”

Some time has passed since the kisses and all the sexy torture, and Cas is surprised to realize he’s slicking a little, now.

He hesitates. Perhaps he should offer, but — the thought of Dean handling his slick is embarrassing, and when he thinks of how it felt, the washcloth slipping between his legs and passing over him, he can’t help but shy away from the prospect of Dean doing anything like that with something else.

“Is one better than the other?” he hedges, and Dean narrows his eyes slightly.

“Why do you wanna know?”

Cas looks away, drawing a fortifying breath.

Dean said to tell him, so Cas — Cas will tell him.

“I — if it’s alright, I’d like to use the oil.”

Dean’s quiet for a minute, and then he shifts his arm, cupping Cas’s cheek and leaning up to kiss him, hard.

“Thank you for telling me that, Cas,” he murmurs, and then kisses him again.

And honestly, Cas is _baffled_ by Dean’s persistent interest in him trying to enforce his opinions about what they do, but he supposes if it makes him happy . . .

He leans forward, guiding Dean’s head back to rest against the pillows, and eagerly kisses back, feeling somehow _rewarded,_ even though he hasn’t done anything.

Dean’s arms leave him at some point, a strange pop sounding through the room, but Cas ignores it, preoccupied with the return to kissing, with the building pleasure in his gut, Dean’s thigh brushing his penis with every shift of his body.

“Gonna touch us now,” Dean suddenly murmurs, words hot against Cas’s mouth as he pulls away slightly. “Both of us together. Okay?”

Cas nods, remembering how it felt last night, Dean’s hand on him, and braces himself.

Even so — he’s unprepared for the way it feels when Dean’s slick hand grasps him, firm and wet in a wholly unexpected way, and then Dean’s shifting, pushing up against him, and that’s his — sliding right alongside Cas’s —

“Oh,” Cas chokes out, abdomen drawing tight, and Dean brushes their lips together once more.

“Good?”

“Yes. Can you — the way you did last night—"

Dean’s hand slides up between them, wrapped tight around them both, but he rolls his hips forward at the same time and Cas loses his breath at the sensation, his own twitching into the motion.

“You — your penis feels so good, Dean,” he breathes out, and Dean freezes.

And then he starts laughing, a stark intrusion on the fascinating and wonderful sensation Cas is experiencing, and Cas frowns.

“Sorry,” Dean says quickly, touching Cas’s shoulder with his free hand. “Just — uh. You can — maybe you could call it a cock? If you’re okay with that? I can get used to hearing ‘penis’ in bed if you’re not, though.”

Cas makes a face.

“But none of us thought it looked like a rooster.”

Dean blinks.

“Huh?”

Cas shifts a little, subtly pushing into Dean’s hand, rubbing along his penis, and Dean lets out a hiss, though he gives Cas a knowing look.

“We discussed it after the girls came back from the tavern. No one thinks it looks like a rooster.”

“I — okay, fair, but — a lot of things don’t look like what we call them.”

“Like what?” Cas queries, rocking forward again, just to see, and Dean licks his lips.

“Like . . . a tulip. A tulip doesn’t look like two lips, it looks like a whole bunch of lips, if it even looks like lips at all. And cocks aren’t supposed to look like roosters.”

Cas squints, and Dean abruptly draws his hand back down, callouses distinguishable even through the slippery oil, and Cas groans.

“A-alright. Cock. Your — your cock feels good, Dean. I want more. Please.”

The smile drops right off of Dean’s face.

“Son of a bitch,” he mutters, and then Cas is being tugged back down for a kiss, Dean’s fingers threading through his still damp hair as his other hand starts working faster.

Dean steals the gasp right from his lips.

And Cas should be embarrassed by how quickly he ends up collapsed on Dean’s chest, face buried in his neck as he desperately thrusts into Dean’s hand around them, worried about what Dean can see of his back, about what he can feel of Cas’s slick, dirtying his thighs, but it’s so hard to care about any of it, so hard not to just have faith that it doesn’t matter, that someone who would do such a wonderful thing to him would ever look where he’d been asked not to, would ever shame Cas for something he couldn’t control, because Dean said he never wanted Cas to feel bad, and Cas—

Cas lies with him, drowning in the feel of being held, of their — their _cocks_ sliding wetly together, Dean’s fingers wrapped tight around him, and he believes it.

“I — I think — I think I’m going to come, Cas,” Dean pants, arm snug around Cas’s shoulders. “Are you? Are you close?”

It takes Cas a moment to remember what he’s talking about, and when he does, he nods against Dean, that increasingly familiar sensation spiking within him.

“Fuck,” Dean murmurs, twisting slightly, ducking his head to nose his way down Cas’s throat, lips brushing the base of it. “So good, so fucking good—"

Cas doesn’t stop moving, just shudders and moans as Dean starts kissing his neck again, and this time, when Dean’s teeth start gently grazing, it doesn’t even surprise him.

He arches, shallowly thrusting alongside Dean as tremors wrack his body, pleasure striking every nerve within, and spills all over Dean’s hand.

The pressure of Dean’s teeth abruptly sharpens, so much so Cas feels a sting of pain, pain that somehow translates to a second wave of white-hot bliss as Dean jerks and grunts beneath him, and it’s all so unexpected Cas can’t suppress a shout. Dean lets out an answering groan against his neck, the skin between his teeth unbroken but throbbing, and they tremble together for several moments, Dean periodically still twitching against him.

***

“Fuck,” he gasps, breath harsh against the bruising flesh, and suddenly, Dean’s pulling away, fingers coming up to brush against Cas’s neck. “Shit, I didn’t — are you okay?”

Cas attempts a small noise of assent, body limp and strangely tongue-tied, and Dean stiffens.

“What?”

Cas clears his throat, fumbling to pat Dean’s chest.

“Okay,” he echoes hoarsely, then pats Dean’s chest again. “Good, Dean.”

There’s a startled laugh, one Cas feels right against his palm, right alongside Dean’s racing heart, and Cas smiles.

“I might need to get back in the bath,” he adds, and the laughter grows, a deep, steady rumble beneath Cas’s hand, and Cas tucks his face into Dean’s neck a little tighter, feeling it there, too, like they’re both somehow part of the same body, just one being lying there, joy brightly coursing through it.

_I love you,_ he thinks, and then he reluctantly disentangles himself and silences Dean’s laughter with a kiss, drinking in that joy and pretending for a moment that he will never, ever need anything else.

Cas doesn’t get back in the bath, the water unacceptably cold, and since he’d rather slip beneath the duvet with Dean and relish in closeness for a while longer, he follows Dean’s lead and opts to spot-clean himself before climbing back into bed, permitting Dean to reopen his eyes.

“If somebody brings us dinner, they’re gonna expect at least one of us to be dressed,” Dean points out, leaning up to kiss him, and Cas shrugs, pleased by the attention.

“I’ll ask her to leave it outside the door.”

Dean grins.

“Yeah? You’re not getting dressed?”

“It seems pointless,” Cas reasons, lying back beside him. “I’m comfortable like this.”

“What about when I leave?”

Cas sobers a little.

“I’ll put my nightgown on,” he answers quietly, though he’s already following lonely thoughts into the next day, and the day after, and so on, to waking up and coming home and having no choice but to wait.

Dean’s silent for a moment, and then he sniffs.

“Everything okay?”

Cas tries to shake the thoughts away, nodding.

“More than. This — it was a very good day.”

Cas simply wishes he could expect more like it, and soon.

“Hm.” Dean studies him for a moment. “Have you, uh. Have you ever spooned with anybody?”

Cas squints.

“Spooned.”

“Yeah.”

“That is not a thing,” Cas says, with confidence, and Dean chuckles.

“It totally is. Can I show you?”

Cas narrows his eyes further.

“What is it?”

“Just — a way of holding each other.”

Cas immediately relaxes.

“Oh. Then yes.”

Dean smiles.

“Do you like holding or being held better?”

Cas makes a face.

“That question doesn’t make any sense. Neither is superior to the other,” he adds, a touch vehemently, lest Dean be about to try and limit his opportunities for either.

Dean laughs again, and instead of showing Cas any interesting holding techniques, wriggles closer and kisses him.

“What about right now? What do you want?”

Cas hesitates, and Dean kisses him again.

“You seemed sad a second ago.”

Cas swallows.

“A little.”

“Okay. Can I hold you?”

Cas nods.

“Please,” he says quietly, and yet again, Dean’s mouth brushes over his.

Cas is used to this bed, but he’s always thought wistfully of the one he left behind at the castle, his current one undeniably inferior.

He was wrong, though.

The best bed, apparently, is the one that has Dean in it.

“So, uh. Spooning’s called that ‘cause you’re like a couple of spoons, nested in the drawer. You turn away, and I just — slot up behind you. And then I hold on to you.”

Cas knows a flicker of unease, at that.

“I . . . there’s nothing covering me.”

Dean reaches up, tucking Cas’s hair back behind his ear.

“I thought we could wrap the sheet around you a little.”

“Oh.” Cas nods, relieved. “Alright.”

Dean smiles wider, and then he pulls the sheet all the way up, turning his head away while Cas rolls onto his side and tries to arrange it behind him.

“Like this?” Cas asks, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he’s covered, and Dean turns back.

“Perfect,” he confirms. “Can I?”

Cas nods, curious to see where he’s going with this, and then Dean scoots forward and carefully presses up behind him, molding his body to Cas’s and draping an arm over his middle.

Cas sucks in a breath, Dean’s hand settling warm over his stomach, and instinctively press back into him.

Dean makes a happy sound, a sound that tickles Cas’s ear and sends a pleasant shiver rushing through him, and with a nod, Cas closes his eyes and covers Dean’s hand with his own.

“Spooning is good,” he offers, and Dean gives him a squeeze.

“Spooning’s fucking awesome,” he corrects, and that, Cas doesn’t even bother trying to argue with.

To Cas’s surprise, they’re left alone until close to ten, when a soft knock at the door interrupts their reluctant exchange of blanket and pillowcases, tomorrow already hanging heavy over Cas’s head.

There’s something soft and sad in Dean’s eyes, something even a little worried, perhaps, and Cas wonders if Dean feels it, too.

He dons his nightgown and walks Dean to the door, struggling to ignore the tight, anxious feeling growing in the pit of his stomach as he prepares himself to watch Dean go.

“So, uh. I don’t know exact dates, but — Sam and Charlie are gonna come visit in a week or so, for sure.”

It should be reassuring, and it is, but Cas can’t help himself.

It does nothing for his sadness, or his dread.

“Alright,” he says quietly, and Dean’s mouth twitches down at one corner.

“And I — I’ll be back as soon as I can. I don’t know how long everything’ll take, or when I can talk my dad into giving the okay, but — soon, Cas. As soon as earthly possible.”

Cas nods, an odd feeling rising thick in his throat, and for a moment, he’s worried he won’t be able to speak.

“Your highness,” Susan calls over the banister, before he can try, and Dean jumps. “I don’t suppose you can do anything about the brooding, before you go?”

“Brooding?” Dean echoes blankly, and Susan leans against the railing, cocking her head.

“Like a chicken,” she says matter-of-factly. “The longer you were gone, the more he worried you weren’t coming back.”

Cas flushes hot as her meaning sinks in, Dean’s gaze flying to him, startled and vaguely upset.

_I didn’t brood,_ he wants to say.

“I’m not a chicken,” is what somehow comes out instead, and Dean’s brows lift.

“Uh. No. No, but — you don’t — you shouldn’t worry about it, Cas. Unless I like, die on the way or something, I’m gonna be back before you know it.”

Cas grits his teeth, deeply unappreciative of this remark, even if Dean meant it as hyperbole.

“Yes. Thank you. That’s very nice. Please go away, Susan.”

Dean snorts, but he still looks a little troubled.

“I’m serious, though. When I say ‘as soon as I can’ — I don’t care if I have to leave in the middle of the night, I’m taking off and coming here the second Dad says it’s okay.”

“Don’t do that,” Cas insists, frowning. “You’re more likely to die on the way if you don’t sleep.”

“Okay, well, then I’ll leave at the asscrack of dawn. I promise.”

Cas nods. He appreciates the reassurance, but it doesn’t change the fact that the days ahead of him will be utterly devoid of Dean’s presence, and that—

That is what Cas struggles most with.

“Alright. Thank you. I . . . I’ll miss you. As I always do.”

_As I always will,_ he thinks, helplessly watching Dean’s lips curve into a soft smile.

“Me, too, Cas. I’ll be countin’ the days.” Dean clears his throat. “Susan, you mind giving us some space?”

“Very much,” she returns, unabashed. “But I guess I’ll give it to you, anyhow.”

With a wink, she turns and starts back up the stairs, and Dean waits for her steps to fade before he crowds in close, hands cupping Cas’s cheeks.

“I . . . I’m gonna miss you a lot,” he reiterates, eyes flicking between Cas’s. “Just . . . remember that you’re, uh. You’re really important to me.”

Cas nods slowly, careful not to dislodge his hands.

“As you are to me,” he agrees, and Dean hesitates.

“I lied,” he blurts out, and Cas frowns.

“What?”

“Charlie doesn’t have your portrait.” Dean licks his lips. “I do. I — I make sure it’s the first thing I see when I wake up, and the last thing when I go to sleep.”

Cas’s stomach flips, a sudden warmth tingling through him, and he stares at Dean, struggling to process the words.

“Why . . . why would you lie about that?”

Dean doesn’t answer for a few seconds, brow furrowing.

“I — it, uh. It’s hard to let someone know how important they are to you, and sometimes something else comes out and it’s stupid, but you just — it’s embarrassing, or — or scary, if they know how much you actually care.”

When he’s finished speaking, Dean fixes Cas with a strangely hopeful look.

Cas doesn’t know what he’s hoping for, though; mostly, Cas just feels — well, _hurt._

“Why would you want me to think you cared less than you did?”

Dean winces.

“Just — I don’t know. It’s — complicated? Haven’t you ever tried to keep some of your feelings back from someone? Maybe — made it sound like they were less than they were, so — so it wouldn’t be uncomfortable?”

Cas hesitates, and Dean straightens, gaze intent.

“No,” Cas says after a beat. “I haven’t.”

Dean’s shoulders drop.

“So . . . if you, uh. If you feel something, you just — you just say it? And there’s never anything more?”

Again, Cas has no idea how to answer that.

“Yes,” he lies, and Dean blinks.

“Oh.”

“But I forgive you for saying Charlie had it,” Cas adds hastily, but still, Dean doesn’t look pleased.

“Uh. Yeah. Thank you.”

“And — and I’m glad you have it. And that you want to see me.” Cas clears his throat. “I wish I had a portrait of you.”

Dean softens, at that.

“Yeah?”

Cas just nods.

“Okay. I, uh. I can probably bring one back for you.”

Cas nods again.

“Please do.”

Dean’s silent for a moment, and then he sighs.

“See you next time?” he offers, and just like that, the lump is back in Cas’s throat.

“Yes,” he manages, stepping forward, suppressing the urge to reach out, to hold on. “Next time.”

Dean smiles.

“It’s too cold to walk me out to the carriage,” he points out, and reluctantly, Cas agrees.

Instead, he kisses him goodbye right there in the foyer, Dean’s thick winter jacket uncooperative beneath his scrabbling fingers, and far too soon, Dean gently pulls away.

“Good night, Cas,” he says softly.

“Good night,” Cas returns, and with that, Dean walks out the front door.

Cas shuts it behind him, and feels cold anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> Discussion about body parts and gender: Cas is astounded by the revelation that women have orgasms, but since he has mistakenly correlated his own orgasms with his penis, he wants to know how they do this, and it leads him to ask if some women have penises. This is not a society that talks about these things or has adequate definitions to do so, and as a result, this conversation doesn’t fully address the lack of connection between body parts and gender, or explicitly acknowledge that a person of any gender may have any kind of body (though Dean’s language is meant to imply that he has some awareness that there may be more to it; he’s simply indicating that where there is, people tend to be private about it, and other people usually just make an assumption). It is definitely not meant to come off as transphobic or offensive (some of Cas’s reactions here are a commentary on the fact that inflexibility on these issues is learned/cultural, not instinctive, because as surprised as Cas is, he’s prepared to accept new truths precisely because he hasn’t been taught not to), but if you’re bothered or uncomfortable with how this is handled, I do apologize, and I always appreciate being told if there’s a problem with things like this.
> 
> Sexual Content: There is an erotic bath in which Dean touches Cas’s penis and posterior with the washcloth, which I opted not to begin the *** marks at, but if you think you will be bothered, the bath is effectively foreplay and can probably be skipped (although once Cas is out, there is a conversation about the importance of communication and both parties enjoying what is happening).  
> For the scene following the ***, Cas crawls into Dean’s lap, asking Dean not to touch his back. Dean explains the options of either using oil or slick for lubrication; Cas is not yet comfortable with the idea of Dean touching his rear, and asks to use the oil. Dean coats his hands and takes both their penises in hand. There is a brief discussion in which Dean asks if Cas might use the word ‘cock’ instead of ‘penis,’ after Cas uses the latter in expressing his pleasure. While reaching his pleasure, Cas has some positive thoughts and feelings about the trust he has in Dean, despite his peripheral worries over his back and the way he’s slicking, having faith that Dean won’t look or make him feel bad over any of it. Dean then just-shy-of-bites him, resulting in Cas’s orgasm.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: references to the horse story, discussions of sexuality, implied demi/grey-sexual Cas depending on how you interpret things, references to censorship, sexual content (scene marked *** at the beginning and end, details in the notes if you skip), please let me know if I missed anything.

Dean makes good time going home, clear roads and manageable cold the whole way, but his dreams of sliding into a hot bath and eating dinner as soon as he gets to the castle are dashed pretty much the moment he rides through the gate.

“His Majesty would like to speak with you,” one of his father’s footmen inform him, already circling around to the back of the carriage when Dean opens the door. “I’ll have your trunk taken up.”

Dean just barely suppresses a groan.

“Right. Thank you.”

Anyway, he makes the long walk to his father’s study, and once there, he waits at the door for several minutes while John finishes writing a letter.

“Welcome home,” his dad greets him, when the seal is left to dry. “How’d everything go?”

“Uh. Pretty good.”

“Yeah?” John steeples his fingers. “Make the progress you were hoping for?”

Dean almost laughs. His dad has _no idea._

“Uh. Kind of. I think I’ve got a plan in place, at least,” he says, and it’s true, if only about the safe houses.

John nods.

“Good. Plans are important. A man’s odds of getting what he wants are only as good as the plan he makes to get it.” He clears his throat, continuing before Dean really has a chance to figure out how that applies here. “Anyway, you can report to the council tomorrow, but for now — my head groom’s just about having a nervous breakdown because everyone’s saying the royal stables have plague.”

Dean’s brain stutters to a halt.

“Uh.” He blinks, a vague sort of panic flitting through him. “That — that’s weird.”

His dad just looks back at him for a moment, and then abruptly turns, opening a drawer and pulling out a stack of letters so thick Dean’s surprised he can get a grip on them.

He tosses them onto the table, where they slide into a messy pile, and then glances back at Dean.

“There’s also these.”

Dean swallows.

“What, uh. What are those?”

“Condolence letters,” John drawls. “For our beloved horse Mary, who apparently died of plague.”

Dean’s skin tingles violently, like maybe it thinks it belongs to a part-chameleon prince and can somehow make him disappear beneath his father’s gaze.

“Ah,” is all he manages to say.

John raises a brow.

“We’ve been getting them all month. Don’t suppose you know anything about it?”

Dean hesitates.

“I . . . it . . . uh. Well. I think, uh. I think there may have been a — a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding,” John repeats, expressionless. “A misunderstanding at least fifty people throughout the kingdom have somehow heard about?”

Dean winces.

“I just — I was — uh. I was in a . . . dangerous situation. And I needed an explanation for — for a thing, and I . . . told them our horse had died.”

“Of _plague_?”

“Well, the horse — the horse had to be shot, or at least, that — that’s what the story hinged on, but — I just said we _thought_ it had plague, not that it definitely did.” Dean coughs. “Also it was blind and its leg was broken, so. Yeah. I think, uh. I think — you know, somebody must have really got carried away on the plague part.”

John looks briefly taken aback as Dean delivers this explanation, though his face quickly resumes its cool neutrality.

“I see,” he says. “Well. I’m sure you didn’t feel like you had a choice, but — fact is, people are worried about it.”

John reaches for the drawer again, this time pulling out a sheet of parchment.

“Here’s a list of stables refusing business or respite for anyone with horses from the capital. Go put their minds at ease.”

Dean gulps, glancing at the sheet.

“Like . . . personally?”

John shrugs, watching him.

“It was your mistake, Dean.”

“Right. Right, it — it definitely was, but — this’ll take weeks. Some of those places are days away.”

“There aren’t _that_ many. Shouldn’t take you more than two.”

Dean tries and fails to think of an excuse not to for a moment, then sighs.

(At least his dad didn’t ask what the dangerous situation was; Dean wasn’t kidding when he told Gordon the king was _way_ too busy to concern himself with Dean’s bullshit.)

“Right. Uh. I guess I’ll — give my report to the council and take care of some business here, and then . . . head out.”

His father inclines his head, a glint of amusement in his eye.

“You do that, son.”

Resigned, Dean trudges back to his room for that bath.

Once the travel dirt is swirling down the tub drain and Dean’s daisy fresh, he goes for some dinner with a considerably unhelpful Sam and Charlie — “I _told_ you you shouldn’t have lied about the horse.” “Yeah, after I did it!” “Dude, you shouldn’t have needed to be told in the first place!” — and then he puts on Cas’s nightgown, changes out all the cases on his pillows, adjusts the portrait on the one beside him, and snuggles into bed by eight.

He likes his bed a lot better when it smells like Cas, that’s for fucking sure.

Anyway, he’s tired enough from a late night at Mills Park and waking up early to drive — not to mention dodging uncomfortable questions about his relationship with Cas and what he’s pretty sure was _disappointment_ that he somehow failed to bring Cas back with him, even though they all should have known talking Cas into coming back would take time (assuming it happened at all, which they really shouldn’t have) — that as soon as his head hits the pillow and the simultaneously soothing and enticing scent of rain floods his nostrils, he figures it won’t take long to fall asleep at all.

And he’s tired, sure, but once he’s settled, quietly breathing in, he doesn’t really feel _sleepy_.

Mostly, he finds himself just — thinking.

Because while yeah, things have always been a little . . . weird, he guesses, with him and Cas, now more than ever, they’re just — it’s all more complicated than he ever thought.

Being in love with someone, being in love like _this_ , is nothing like he’d expected.

If you’d asked him, way back when, Dean would have said that if you fell in love and the other person didn’t feel the same, then you went home, licked your wounds, and moved on.

But apparently, there’s a lot more to it than he thought. For starters, he never imagined feeling anything like the way he does now, not even when he sort of let himself daydream about having a mate, about having someone he loved like his parents loved each other, about getting some dumb fairytale ending, but now that he _does,_ he’s wondering if _maybe_ . . .

Maybe when you really love someone, you kind of take what you can get, and it’s something you just learn to live with.

Because Cas isn’t really rejecting him, as such. He’s just saying that the things he wants from Dean are a little different than the things Dean wants from him. And no, it’s not what Dean was hoping for, not what he wanted or expected from being so head over heels for someone he couldn’t imagine landing upright ever again, but still — he thinks he can probably learn to accept it.

And honestly, part of him still feels a little like he’s plucking petals off a goddamn daisy, saying ‘he loves me, he loves me not.’ Cas loves kissing him, but also, Cas enjoys everything because they’re friends. Cas doesn’t want to mate anyone, but then, he thinks Samandriel’s gonna be a great alpha in the future. Cas thinks about Dean often, when he’s supposed to be doing other things, got scared Dean wouldn’t come back, wants Dean’s _portrait,_ a way to see him when he isn’t there—

But he also always says exactly what he means, no more and no less, and that — Dean believes that. From anybody else, he wouldn’t, but his experience is that Cas _does_ always say what’s on his mind, even when he maybe shouldn’t.

So if Cas isn’t saying he loves him . . . that means he doesn’t, right?

Except — then Dean finds himself back in bed, Cas warm in his arms, holding Dean’s hand over his stomach and praising the merits of spooning; he’s back in the foyer, Cas’s hands scrambling for purchase on his jacket, kissing Dean like he wants nothing more than to stop him from leaving altogether, and suddenly, Dean’s wondering if Cas at least _could._

This isn’t a fairytale; it doesn’t have to be ‘at first sight.’ It doesn’t even have to be at first orgasm. Their whole relationship’s been fucking bizarre from the start, shouldn’t even still exist, after what Dean did, but it is what it is and it _does_ , and if Cas is taking his time figuring himself out, figuring out what makes him feel good, what maybe makes him _happy_ —

Isn’t he allowed to take his time figuring out whether or not he could love Dean?

And if they really are just friends, if that’s really all they’re ever going to be . . . isn’t Dean allowed to just _love_ him, whatever Cas wants that to involve?

_Why, I’d hate for you to end up feeling like you just wasted your time on more of the same._

Dean buries his face in the pillow with a grimace. The kid is a goddamn brat and a part of Dean is _itching_ to have him thrown in the castle dungeon just for being a little shit, _however . . ._

What if Dean’s just using the fact that Cas is totally fucking oblivious as an excuse to somehow — lure him into something he wouldn’t consciously choose? Maybe the kissing and the orgasms are the first two bouquets of chrysanthemums, and the third’ll be Dean asking him to come back to the castle — as a friend! — but he’ll really just be trying to make sure Cas doesn’t have any choice but to end up with him by default.

Is it really fair to just — lie to Cas? To just go see him and take what he can get and let Cas think that’s just what friends do? That Dean’s just another nice young man coming to visit him and bearing gifts when really it’s all sinister trap-bouquets that’ll leave him wary and fucked up forever after once the other shoe drops?

Even if Cas doesn’t feel the same way, even if he doesn’t want to try and cobble a future together out of whatever the council lets them have — what if he deserves to know that when Dean’s tucked up behind him, holding on, _that’s_ what Dean’s feeling, and _that’s_ what a part of him is secretly still hoping to get?

But — maybe it’s not a question of keeping it a secret _forever_. Maybe it really is a question of just . . . ‘wait and see’. Maybe Dean should shut up and shove down the embarrassing confessions that kind of wanna leap out of his mouth every time Cas lets out one of those soft sighs and bares his throat for Dean for just a little while longer, because maybe this is actually like Cas coming to his bed the night of the festival and wondering why Dean was kissing him. Maybe this is like Cas thinking sex would be something he did for Dean, not himself. Maybe this is like Cas getting pissed when Dean rolled away and jerked himself off without him.

Maybe Dean was right a minute ago, and he _is_ one of those things Cas might figure out he actually wants, if someone just gives him time?

New Eden used him and kept him away from other people and told him he was an _abomination_ , that he was worthless, and Cas just — accepted it and did what he was told. And even when he came here, even when Dean was being complete garbage to him, Cas — he kept trying to work with that. He kept being grateful for shit that was even less than what they owed him. He saw what was about to happen to him and instead of waiting for Dean to fall asleep so he could unscrew one of the posters from the bed and club Dean in to well-deserved oblivion with it, he just — all he asked was if he could see his _kids_.

Dean wonders, suddenly, if maybe the problem isn’t even that Cas isn’t feeling it yet; maybe the problem is that it never _occurs_ to Cas to think of wanting more, to think of _ask_ _ing_ for more, because if you look at it in the big-picture—

What the hell good would _wanting_ have ever done him? The way his life has been, it would have just left him disappointed, wouldn’t it?

So . . . what if the right thing to do here is to simply keep giving Cas the stuff he _does_ ask for, to let him get used to that, used to actually _getting_ what he wants, and hope that Cas’ll start wanting more and more until maybe, just maybe, he decides Dean can be one of those things?

Maybe?

Because really, what is Dean even trying to decide here? He promised Cas he’d keep coming to see him, and he’s not about to refuse to make him feel good while he’s there, and even if yeah, stupid Alfie is right about Dean maybe not being as delicate as he should be—

It’s not because he’s not capable of it.

And maybe, for a little while longer, a delicate approach is the way to go.

Dean can wait. Cas has spent his whole life waiting for a chance to do and be what he wants; Dean can wait a few months or a few years or however long it takes while he figures it out, and when he does, when he understands enough to decide whether Dean is going to be a part of that or not—

Well, Dean’ll be there.

And _until_ then—

Dean decides it just doesn’t matter.

“Hey, Gordon, got a minute?” Dean asks, once he’s done furnishing a disgruntled Tara with the (promising) numbers and giving the council a rundown of his plans. “There’s something I kinda wanted to talk to you about.”

Gordon pauses, turning to give Dean a weirdly knowing look.

“Sure. Come on, I’m headed back to my study.”

Dean follows him, relieved — he’s still got four other council members to try and meet with before he heads out on the plague-what-plague-this-is-all-just-a-big-misunderstanding tour of Winchester, and while he’ll wait on their convenience if he _has_ to, he’s really hoping to just get it out of the way.

Gordon shuts the door behind them and gestures Dean to sit, settling in at his desk with an expectant look.

“I’ll be honest,” he says. “I figured you’d be coming around, although this is a little sooner than I expected.”

Dean’s briefly startled, but then he remembers that Gordon’s put in a lot of hours on this project himself, and since he _hasn’t_ also been preoccupied with angsting about his feelings like Dean was, it makes sense that he came to the same conclusion as Cas.

In any case, it makes this talk a hell of a lot easier, so Dean’s not about to complain.

“Yeah, I, uh, I made some good progress,” he says, smiling. “Then, I guess — do you have any thoughts about location?”

One eye squints a little.

“You asking me what church to have it in? Well, assuming you get the okay, but — yeah, I’ll vote in favor.”

Dean frowns.

“Uh. I guess — if you’ve got a large enough empty church, we could renovate it, but . . . I’m ninety-nine-percent sure Tara wouldn’t approve the cost. A large estate would be better, if we can negotiate with one of the Lords.”

Gordon gives him a blank look.

“What?”

Dean nods.

“Don’t get me wrong, your church idea might still end up costing less, but even if we offer to update or repair someone’s secondary estate, I’m guessing that’ll be our best bet for a safe-house candidate.”

Gordon is silent for a long moment, just looking at him, and then he sighs.

“Of course,” he mutters. “Alright — so what you’re _actually_ here to ask about is putting a safe house in my city?”

Dean lifts his brows.

“Well, yeah? What else would I be here for?”

“I’m sure you’ll get there,” Gordon says kindly, then leans back, looking thoughtful. “Alright, if I’m following correctly — I think Wellsley’s got a place his family keeps up, but hasn’t touched in a couple decades. Too rainy. They like their southern estate better.”

Dean perks up.

“Yeah? So . . . when you say ‘keeps up’ . . .”

“Had a hunting party there about — four years ago?” Gordon cocks his head. “Said never again, but — place was pretty nice. I don’t think it’d take too much getting ready at all. Take over maintenance and he’ll probably be glad to let you use it.”

“Yeah? That sounds great. I, uh, I don’t suppose you’ve got any names to recommend as far as management and staffing?”

Gordon considers this.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He reaches for his fountain pen, nodding at Dean. “I’ll give you a list.”

The other meetings don’t go _quite_ as smoothly — a few of the others he’d figured for sympathetic tentatively agree, but want their councils back home to pass a vote first, which is where Anna might want to go peddle her prints sooner rather than later — but Dean manages to get through them all with fairly promising results and he only misses dinner by an hour.

He’s really not looking forward to driving all over the country trying to assuage fears of plague, especially in the places further North, but the sooner he makes the rounds, the sooner he gets to go back to Cas, and however uncertain the future might look—

For right now, Dean just really, really wants to go back to Cas.

Anyway, he packs up his stuff (and all but one of Cas’s pillowcases), rings for a bite to eat, and once he’s washed up and changed for bed, he makes a detour to his escritoire on impulse.

As far as coming back goes, Cas kind of just has to take Dean’s word for it, but as far as _worrying_ about it goes . . .

Dean retrieves a fresh piece of parchment and grabs a pen from the drawer.

At the very least, he can try to set Cas’s mind at ease.

Cas thinks there might be something wrong with him.

The morning after Dean departs, he wakes up to find himself rubbing against the tartan blanket through his nightgown, hard and slicking and feeling like it’s the early stages of his heat, although he somewhat guiltily strokes his penis until the coming occurs, and he’s fine after that.

Except, as he’s eating breakfast, his mind somehow wanders to Dean, as it often does, and to kissing Dean, which is also not uncommon, but then things devolve further and suddenly Cas is lost in memories of Dean’s penis gliding wetly right alongside his, of the pleasant ache of Dean’s teeth pinching at Cas’s throat, of that thing his thumb does on some of his strokes, specially rubbing the tip of Cas’s penis—

Next to him, Meredith coughs.

“Are you feeling alright, Castiel?”

All the blood in Cas’s body seems to rush to his face, and he banishes the thoughts from his mind, plate coming back into focus.

“Yes. Sorry.”

“Oh, no worries.” She gives him a knowing look. “Being an omega is an awful inconvenience, sometimes.”

“I don’t know,” Vivian chimes in. “I think having a rut has to be way worse. In addition to getting all weepy and needy, alphas try and pick fights with everything. At least omegas go straight to bed without causing trouble.”

“Well, we _are_ better at predicting the start of it. I swear to God, an alpha can get twelve hours into his rut before he realizes he’s even _having_ it. Just snaps and leers at every breathing thing that crosses his path.”

Millie snorts.

“Right? Haven’t they ever heard of calendars? It’s not like it’s difficult to just keep _track_.”

Which, Cas feels a little bad about that, since he doesn’t really bother, but now that they mention it—

He _is_ due for another heat soon.

Maybe it’s just off to an odd start, this time, and that’s why he’s so distracted.

Anyway, he finishes his breakfast without further trouble and heads to work, but despite a lack of erectness or slicking, Cas finds his thoughts drifting to more of the same.

Which — thinking of Dean is one thing, but thinking of kisses and penises and sexy torture while he’s trying to work just seems — isn’t that _excessive_? This is no longer ‘wandering thoughts’ so much as ‘thoughts getting hopelessly stuck in places they perhaps shouldn’t even go in the first place,’ in which case, trying to transport heavy crates from ship to dock and vice versa is really not the time to be having them.

And yet, despite his best efforts, it doesn’t _stop_.

And when he goes home, idling in his room with a book — it happens _again._

It just — it keeps on _happening._

When he goes down to dinner and finds pie served for dessert, he thinks of Dean, and instead of simply having fond recollections of all the pies they’ve shared, his mind goes straight to Dean’s lips, closing around a forkful of crumbly, dripping pie, and about three seconds later Cas’s mind somehow finds him right back in bed, bare skin pressed to Dean’s, Dean’s mouth hot on his neck while pleasure coils tight inside him.

Cas quickly excuses himself to his room, baffled.

If this is a heat, it’s the strangest heat he’s ever experienced.

Anyway, he ignores the lingering traces of want and remembered pleasure, curling up in the tartan blanket and doing his best to fall asleep, and when morning dawns the following day—

It’s basically a repeat of the day before.

Cas thinks of kissing Dean, of bathing with Dean, of rubbing their flesh together, of just about every orgasm Dean’s ever given him, _all._ _T_ _he._ _T_ _ime._ He doesn’t _think_ it’s a heat, can eventually distract himself away from it, can even complete the tasks to which he’s been assigned, for the most part, but he feels restless and unsettled and try as he might to control his thoughts, it’s as though mind and body are mutually obsessed.

Maybe it _is_ a heat. Maybe this is one of those things that simply — changes, as you get older.

Increasingly disturbed, Cas distracts himself for the evening by working on a new puzzle with Max and Susan while Anna addresses a small parlor audience, and he even volunteers to stay up late and listen to her talk through plans for speaking and distributing her prints when it comes time to prepare the new safe houses.

He’s up _so_ late, he falls asleep within minutes, just as planned.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, he doesn’t have work the next day, and after lying in bed for some time trying to think of all the _non_ -kissing or -orgasm related things he and Dean do together, breathing in Dean’s bright, woodsy scent off the blanket for comfort all the while, his penis utterly fails to become less erect.

Resigned, Cas curls into the blanket and decides it’s probably reasonable to do something about it, and this time, he thinks unabashedly of all Dean’s kisses and touches, of Dean’s body, even, striding over to the towel hook, of the strange thing on Dean’s penis and the promise of a later explanation, of how Dean’s release felt against his skin.

Of how Dean’s _teeth_ felt, sharp against his throat, a glorious sting of pain Cas enjoyed much, much more than he would have expected.

It’s all very effective; Cas ends up lying in a dazed stupor for a good twenty minutes after, drifting pleasantly where he normally would have hastened to clean himself up and try to be productive, and he feels more relaxed than he has in days.

For about an hour, that is.

Something burns in the kitchen, and since it’s an unusually nice, sunny day, they open the windows for a spell, and as soon as they do—

The scent of trees outside hits him, putting him instantly in mind of Dean, and just like that, Cas’s mind departs for all manner of depravity.

He slumps in his chair, perturbed.

“Why the long face?” Susan asks, peering over the top of her book. “Out of things to read? Max finished up with Billie’s stockpile, and I thought she was going to cry for a moment, but nope. Got that little determined lip-thing going, turned around, and picked up the first one to go back through them all over again.”

Cas hesitates.

“No. I have a book, but — I think I might be — ill.”

She frowns, setting her novel down.

“Do you want me to get Layla?”

Cas thinks about it, wondering if maybe she _should_.

“I’m not sure,” he admits. “I think it’s some sort of . . . confused heat.”

She lifts her brows, giving the air a sniff.

“You don’t smell like heat. It can’t be that bad yet.”

“Exactly.” He grimaces. “It’s been going on for _days._ Since Dean left.”

Susan goes still.

“Ohhh? How interesting! What are the symptoms, again?”

It takes him a moment to answer, some part of him embarrassed to admit it.

“I . . . I can’t stop . . .” He clears his throat, lowering his voice for a reason he doesn’t fully understand. “I think about having orgasms with him _constantly_.”

Susan chokes a little, but then she quickly nods, propping her chin on her hand.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Perfectly normal.”

He stares.

“It is?”

“You bet. Honestly, I don’t have a handsome prince visiting me in _my_ bedroom, but trust me, I think about having orgasms all the damn _time_.”

“Oh.” He blinks. “But . . . I never did before.”

Susan waves a hand.

“Still normal. I’ve known a couple of girls who weren’t interested in orgasms or anything like it until they had a specific someone in mind to do them with. And not naming names, but someone here once said she _only_ likes to have them by herself, period.”

“Oh.” He considers this. “So . . . it’s just — different? For different people?”

“Mhm.” She gives him a sly smile. “I bet you’re the kind that just wants them from the one person, too, aren’t you?”

He quickly nods.

“Yes. I don’t want to have them with anyone other than Dean. Although—" He coughs. “The ones I’ve been having by myself have been, um. They have been enjoyable.”

She smirks.

“Oh? And do you think about his highness when you have them?”

Cas drops his gaze to the puzzle board, face hot.

“Yes,” he mutters, and for some reason she laughs.

“There’s no shame in it, Castiel. All the best orgasms I’ve ever had have been by myself.”

Which makes it sound like Susan’s had a lot of orgasms, and perhaps even that she has a lot of them _alone_ _._

Of course, Dean _did_ say the women Cas lived with probably had them all the time, but the more the thinks about it, the more it makes sense. If women really don’t tend to make a mess, like Dean told him, then Cas can see how it would be much more convenient to have a high quantity of orgasms.

_However_ —

“Ah. And is that — that’s only during your heat, right?” he asks carefully, wondering how bad he should feel about how often he seems to want to touch himself outside of it lately, and Susan just stares at him for a moment.

And then she bursts out laughing.

“What’s funny?” Max’s voice calls over, and Cas startles, glancing to the parlor doorway, where Lucy and Anna are trailing in behind her.

“Castiel!” Susan gasps out, gleeful. “He’s asking about orgasms!”

Lucy makes a strangled sound, scrambling to cover Max’s ears.

“Good Lord, there is a _child_ present!”

Max frowns, twisting a little, though Lucy’s hands hold firm on either side of her head.

“I’m nineteen, Lucy.”

“Barely more than a babe,” Lucy insists. “God ought to strike down whoever thought you were old enough to wed.”

“Well, I’ll drink to that,” Anna mutters, sidestepping them with a tea tray. “And what does Cas want to know about orgasms?”

Susan giggles, leaning back and crossing her arms.

“Susan—" Cas starts, embarrassed, and she grins.

“I think he thinks we only have them in our heats.”

Cas hesitates, shooting an uneasy glance at his sister, who’s looking — surprised, it would seem.

“Does that mean — you have them outside of your heats, too?”

Susan snickers.

“I can only speak for myself, but — absolutely, Castiel. Often.”

“And that’s not unusual?” He looks to the others. “Is that — are you all the same?”

All three of them sort of look sideways, and then Anna clears her throat.

“Yes?”

Cas lets that sink in for a moment.

And then he gives his sister a betrayed look.

“Why did no one tell _me_ about orgasms?

Her mouth falls open.

“I — Cas, I assumed you knew!”

“I did, but — I thought I wasn’t supposed to!”

Anna’s face falls.

“I thought — but we talked about this. No one here ties us to the bed.”

“Yes, but they still ask you to carve wood!”

Susan’s head tilts.

“Pardon me?”

Cas huffs.

“And that’s during heat. I didn’t — you’re all having them _outside_ of it?”

Anna looks a little guilty.

“Well — yes? It — it’s normal, Cas.”

He presses his lips together, vexed.

“How often?” he demands. “How often is normal?”

They exchange lost looks.

“Whenever you feel like it, and you have time?” Anna offers, and Cas slumps back in his chair, shocked and more than a little frustrated.

“Why don’t they put in the books for women, then?” he asks next. “If you’re really having them all the time.”

And even though Dean said so, Cas assumed ‘all the time’ meant in _heat,_ or once a month or so, which is arguably rather frequent, at least in terms of what _Cas_ is used to.

By the sounds of it, some of them could be having orgasms every _day,_ like he did when Dean was here.

Is that really _okay_?

“Well, because of decency laws, Cas.”

“But Dean said it was normal.” He wishes Dean had told him just _how_ normal it was, though.

(Not that that really explains Cas’s sudden preoccupation with them, though.)

“And it is, but—"

“If it’s normal, it should be in the books,” Cas insists, then frowns. “And even if it weren’t normal — why would you be allowed to write about fairies and not orgasms?”

Lucy huffs.

“Bite your tongue, Castiel, fairies are _plenty_ rea—"

“Or murder,” Cas interrupts, frown deepening to a scowl as he realizes just how stupid ‘decency laws’ must be. “While murder _happens_ , it can’t be more abnormal than orgasms.” He shakes his head. “This doesn’t make any sense. I’m going to talk to Dean about it next time he visits.”

“Oh, you should!” Susan agrees eagerly. “I’d love to read about orgasms!”

“Indecent!” Lucy mutters, and Susan gives her a sunny smile.

“If you don’t _like_ it, you won’t have to _read_ it.”

Lucy just sniffs and starts toward the settee.

“Put the tray down, Anna. And Max,” she adds, nodding toward her. “You’ve got Castiel’s letter still, haven’t you?”

Max immediately perks up.

“Yes! We think it’s from his highness!” She hurries over, fumbling an envelope out of her pocket along the way and handing it to Cas with an unmistakably hopeful look. “Would you like some privacy while you read it?”

It’s a very polite offer, but Cas senses that she might be a trifle disappointed to have to follow through on it.

“I can read it here,” he says slowly. “But I’d like to read it myself, first.”

“Oh, of course.” She smiles, reaching back into her pocket and pulling out a letter opener, this time. “I’ll fix your tea for you while you do that.”

There’s no return address, but Cas recognizes the royal seal, by this point, and he can’t help a small stab of unease as he accepts the letter opener and slips it under the fold.

It _could_ be good news, but — Dean’s never written him before. Why would he start now, if there weren’t a problem? Especially so soon after he’s left; there’s almost certainly been some disaster, even if it’s small.

Worried, Cas unfolds the parchment within and, steeling himself for the worst, begins to read.

_Dear Cas,_

_Today’s my first day home; and I’ve just finished getting ready for bed, so I thought I could sort of write and keep you updated. I think it went pretty well? I’ve got permission to move forward with plans for the safe houses, and I talked to a bunch of council members about using their cities as locations; Gordon’s a sure thing, and I don’t think there’ll be any problems with the rest of them, once we get things in order, so I think we’re looking good on that front._

_Anyway, I also sent a note to the enforcers for New Eden; I think they leave in a few weeks time, and they should be able to figure out how to get David set up somewhere else, so — that should be all taken care of, too._

_I’m going to be traveling for a couple of weeks, since my dad has an errand for me (sorry, it’s a long story), but as soon as I get back, I’ll be on my way to you._

_In the meantime, I thought I could write you? Obviously, there’s nothing that interesting going on, and the letters’ll probably be short, and some of them might take a while to get to you from wherever the hell I am, but — I thought it sounded kinda nice. Just to keep you posted and stuff._

_Obviously, you don’t have to read them, you can just throw them out, if you want, and tell me next time if it’s a nuisance, but until then, I’ll just go ahead. Hopefully that’s okay._

_So, I’ll see you in a few weeks, I hope. If not, then definitely a little later. As soon as I can, basically._

_I miss you already._

_Your_ ~~ _s,_~~ _friend_ _,_

_Dean_

A giddy feeling rises within Cas the entire time he reads, expanding further as his eyes flick to the top of the page and he starts anew. Only when Max gingerly slips a teacup in front of him does he finally look away.

“He’s going to write to me,” he blurts out, mildly ecstatic. “Even though he’s traveling. He — he says he’ll keep me posted.”

Max settles in beside him with a delighted look, though Susan’s smile is vaguely smug.

“How nice,” she says, then adds, “You’re welcome.”

He blinks.

“What?”

She lifts her brows.

“I asked him to do something about the brooding, didn’t I?”

“I—" He stops, frowning at the letter, then colors a little. “Oh. This is to reassure me.”

Susan nudges him.

“That’s not a bad thing. He wouldn’t do it if he didn’t care.” She pauses. “Or if I hadn’t told him to.”

He huffs.

“You didn’t tell him to.”

“I told him there was a problem!” she insists. “You know, he can’t fix things if you don’t let him know they’re wrong.”

Cas sighs.

“Perhaps not, but I don’t want to be a burden, either.”

“That’s true,” she agrees. “His poor highness. Having to endure this gorgeous, tousled omega who smells like all the best parts of spring and could probably rip a tree trunk in half, just _waiting_ for him to come offer orgasms. What a _terrible_ burden, to make sure he’s still waiting!”

Max giggles into her tea, a little bit of it sloshing dangerously close to the edge, and Cas scowls.

Susan is being _ridiculous_ , and he is not going to dignify that with a response.

“What else did the letter say?” Max asks as he picks up his own cup.

“It said plans for the safe houses are moving forward. And . . . that he missed me.” Cas takes a sip, trying not to smile. “Thank you for the tea.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, and Susan snaps her fingers.

“Ooh, I’d better get mine. Don’t talk about anything exciting without me,” she adds, then slips free of her chair and makes a beeline for the coffee table.

He and Max sit in silence for a moment before Max abruptly straightens, though she keeps staring into her tea.

“Do you think . . . will the prince every marry you?” she asks, so quietly he instinctively starts to lean in to listen, until he actually realizes what she’s said.

He sets down his own cup, raising his brows.

“Of course not.”

She hesitates, then slowly lowers her cup as well, though she keeps clutching it tightly.

“We had a queen before, though. I don’t remember it, but — we did, because the king was in love with her.”

“Yes,” he agrees slowly. “That’s what I was told.”

Max nods, shoulders drawing up a little.

And then she takes a deep breath, letting go of her cup and turning slightly to face him.

“Alright,” she says, eyes serious. “Then . . . couldn’t the prince marry you?”

Cas looks back at her, perplexed.

“Why would he?”

Her shoulders drop, expression suddenly turning uncertain.

“Susan . . . Susan said he was in love with you.”

Cas blinks.

And then he laughs, drawing a wary eye from his sister, though Susan and Lucy continue bickering over how much sugar is appropriate for afternoon tea.

“Susan has a lot of strange ideas, Max,” he tells her gently. “Dean’s not in love with me, and even if he were, he wouldn’t marry me. Queen Mary was a noblewoman.”

“That shouldn’t matter, if he loves you,” she immediately protests, turning back to her tea with a frown. “I’m tired of other people making decisions about things like that. I wish it were like it was in the novels. If you really, really wanted something, as long as you weren’t just being greedy, you — you’d find a way to have it.”

Cas softens.

“Yes. That would be nice,” he agrees. “But — it is, in some ways, Max. I don’t need Dean to love me, and I certainly don’t need him to marry me. What _I ‘_ really, really wanted’ was to keep seeing him. And I am.” After a beat, he lifts his letter, smiling slightly. “He’s even written to remind me of it.”

She contemplates the letter for a moment, expression increasingly dissatisfied, then sort of hunches inward, a stubborn set to her mouth.

“Alright,” she mumbles. “But — I think _I_ really, really want him to marry you.”

Too many omegas’ novels, Cas decides, or perhaps Susan’s influence.

Still. Max is young, and even if she’s not yet learned from disappointment to be wary of hoping for things . . .

Well, by the time it becomes clear that’s not going to happen, he doubts it will be a surprise to her.

Two days and one more letter from Dean later, Cas’s heat begins for real.

It’s clear, then, that what he was experiencing before was nothing like a heat, and it’s also clear that a heat is an entirely different thing once someone like Dean has given you orgasms.

If he thought he couldn’t stop thinking of it _before_ — it’s like his mind is on a loop, now, body fevered and wanting, this time for something very, very specific. He thinks about things Dean did to him, ways Dean kissed him and touched him and spoke to him, and if Cas weren’t so mired in desperation , he’d be amazed he didn’t get _tired_ of it.

From the time he wakes up the first day, sheets soaked and body aching, Dean is all he can think about. And Cas doesn’t usually feel too guilty over alleviating his heat, given how uncomfortable it is — who out there really deserves to suffer _that_ much, after all? — but he’s certainly never enjoyed it, at least not beyond that pleasant sense of relief when his clumsy handling of his penis finally yields result.

Now, though?

Cas almost enjoys it now.

Still — it also seems worse, somehow; thoughts of Dean seem to only fuel the ache, seem to drive him to seek release twice as often as he’d normally succumb to, and while he’s been tired and cranky and upset and even _sad_ during his heats before — had been miserable and delirious for most of the ones he experienced in New Eden—

He’s never quite been this _frustrated_. He thinks of Dean, yes, and when he does, he feels — he feels _taunted._

Dean is out there, somewhere in Winchester, being _Dean_ , with his green eyes and his freckles and his warm smile and his strangely gentle, careful hands, and that is an enormous, terrible problem, because it also means he’s not here with _Cas,_ giving him orgasms and holding him during all the exhausted periods in between.

By the end of the second day, Cas is about ready to cry from a completely irrational feeling of abandonment, thoughts of pleasant things that happened what now feels like _years_ ago no longer an adequate companion through his efforts.

And then, on the morning of the third day, Dean’s scent barely even distinguishable from Cas’s on the blanket, heightened by heat as it is — Cas discovers something new.

***

He just means to touch his penis, as he always does, just means to tiredly stroke himself until his orgasm happens and he can roll over and try to go back to bed, but when he attempts to squirm free of his twisted sheets and settle on his back, the sheet gets caught around his legs

He keeps wriggling, though, impatient and exhausted, and as he tries to simply jerk free of it—

It slides, bunched thick between his legs, and drags against him.

Cold-hot sweeps over him, body convulsing without his permission, and Cas freezes in the seconds after, one of the few things he _hasn’t_ been remembering suddenly scrambling to the forefront of his mind, confused but pointed all the same.

He lies there, heart pounding and slick pooling under him and at last, thinks about the washcloth slipping firmly over him, guided by Dean’s hand, an unexpected shock of pleasure in its wake.

He swallows, indecision and an odd sense of fear keeping him still.

It’s worlds different, he thinks, than touching his penis. He doesn’t even know if it’s normal to touch there. He knows his alpha — if he had one — would have to touch it with _something_ , to perform intercourse, but that sort of thing is different than what he and Dean do, is the one thing he was told about, if only in the vaguest of terms, and it isn’t for him.

And _yet_.

Cas takes a deep breath. Touching his penis should be enough. He’s not even trying to restrict himself anymore — it doesn’t sound like anyone else does — and he would almost say he’s getting _better_ at it.

In light of that, he doesn’t need anything more, especially a more that comes with this many questions and so much uncertainty.

Still. Cas takes himself in hand, carefully circling himself, and as he begins to move, he can’t help it.

He keeps thinking about the rough texture of the cloth, Dean’s hand unmistakable through the material, of the sensation that spun out through him when Dean pressed it down.

And even though he shouldn’t—

He _wants._ Every heat he’s ever had, he’s been desperate for some sort of relief, the ache almost painful, and while he feels all of that, now, there’s this terrible, crushing _want,_ demanding like it thinks there’s some hope of satisfaction, and as Cas moves his shaking hand over himself, he can’t resist.

He parts his thighs, and then he reaches between them, slowly bringing his hand to his rear, and nervously, starts stroking his fingers between his buttocks.

Cas spasms so hard his hand slips right off of himself.

“Oh,” he says to the empty room, eyes wide, body still tingling with pleasure.

He takes a moment to process it, every part of him taut and trembling, and then, with a shaky breath, he returns his hand to his penis.

He pushes into it, then rubs over the slick, warm dip of himself once more.

It’s shocking and strange and wonderful, his whole body locking up on the first pass over, just like it did the first time. He moves slowly, rolling his hips up and down as he caresses himself in this obscene way, the dual sensations so intense he occasionally has to stop, and the feeling building beneath his skin is just different enough that he’s almost afraid of it.

But eventually, his pace quickens on instinct, Cas no longer sure he could stop himself if he tried, regardless of how overwhelming the feeling is. He lies there, clumsily touching himself and squirming against his damp, tangled sheets, and he _always_ feels that ache, that heat, a dull throb inside him when he has his orgasm, but this time, that low, pulsing throb seems to dominate, the pleasure of fisting his penis paling against the rest of it as he feels himself tighten beneath his other stroking fingers, clenching in waves as he pushes down a little harder, automatically chasing the pressure.

It’s not quite like anything else he’s ever done, and suddenly, more than ever, he wishes _Dean_ were here, wishes he could tell Dean how good it feels, wishes Dean would smile at him and press in close and put his teeth on Cas’s neck the way he usually did by this point, a maddening combination of sharp and gentle until Cas needs it otherwise, and when he did, when Dean’s scent deepened and his teeth finally bit down, hard enough to sting, just the way they did the last night, then at _last_ , Cas would—

His orgasm seizes his entire body, ruthless and wild as every muscle in it goes tense and he cries out, stars dancing in his vision as he helplessly rocks his hips, too much and not enough with his hands still hovering stupidly in position, and he can’t help himself.

Even though it never happened that way, in his head, he imagines Dean’s teeth sinking all the way into the skin.

He sobs, rolling onto his stomach and jerking gracelessly against his poor sheets as he pushes his rear back into disappointingly cool, empty air, that endless, almost unbearable feeling still crashing through him in waves.

And more than any other time during this strange, volatile heat—

He hates that he’s doing this alone.

***

“Welcome back,” Anna says sympathetically, the fifth day after Cas’s heat began, and he gives her a grim look, slumping into his dining chair as breakfast commences.

“Thank you.” He rubs his eyes, reaching for the coffee pot. “That was exhausting.”

Vastly more satisfying, in some ways, but mostly — _exhausting._

“It always is,” she agrees, nudging the sugar toward him, and he gives her a grateful look.

“I won’t say it was better, being tied to the bed,” he says. “But it was terrible in an entirely different way.”

She pats his shoulder, reaching for a piece of toast. Given that she already has one, he optimistically decides she’s going to butter this one for him.

“Alex told me a lot of things can influence it.”

Cas sighs.

“It was nice, being able to think of Dean, but — it also made it more difficult. Do you have someone you think of during your heats?”

Anna freezes.

Then she calmly reaches for the butter knife.

“No,” she says, then begins aggressively slathering the piece of bread with butter. Normally, Cas would complain, but after a heat — the excess sounds _delicious._

“I wish he’d given me the portrait before it happened, though,” he mutters, holding out eager hands once she’s finally coated it. “I would have liked to have been able to actually look at him, even if it was just a likeness.”

Anna squints.

“Cas. That’s . . . really more information than you probably want to provide.”

“No, no,” Susan chimes in from his other side, plunking into the chair there. “Feel free to share, Castiel. What portrait are we talking about?”

Cas smiles.

“Good morning, Susan. We’re talking about Dean’s portrait. He said he’d give me one, since he has one of me.”

She lifts her brows, swiping a piece of bacon right out of the chafing dish and bringing it to her mouth.

“He has one of you?”

Cas nods.

“I hadn’t thought so — he originally told me Charlie had it — but yes.” He smiles a little wider, looking at his toast. “He, um. He told me he sleeps beside it. So that I’m the first thing he sees in the morning, and the last he sees at night.”

Susan’s jaw drops, an unfortunate display of half-chewed bacon appearing as a result.

“He — but you — what did you _say_?”

Cas tilts his head.

“Well, I asked for one of him, of course.”

Susan stands so fast every dish within five feet of her rattles, her palms slapping the tabletop.

“Susan!” Anna snaps, looking alarmed, but all Susan does is let go of the table, eyes a little wild as she rakes her fingers through her hair. “Control yourself!”

“But they’re in _love_!” she wails, and Max, seated across from her, presses an odd-sounding cough into her hand.

When she pulls it back, though, she’s grinning, and Cas suspects she didn’t really need to cough at all.

He suppresses a sigh, gently touching Susan’s elbow.

“Susan. Dean and I are not in love. Please sit.”

Susan’s head snaps toward him, mouth hanging open.

“You — how can you even _say_ —"

“Because we’re not,” he repeats and then, thinking of Max, adds: “Please stop telling people we are.”

“What else do you _call_ it?”

Cas hesitates.

Then he shrugs.

“Best friends. Now, please stop shouting. I’m very tired from my heat.”

Susan just stares at him, for so long Cas is afraid she’s going to start again, and then abruptly drops into her chair.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” she says, somewhat listless as she looks down at her plate, and Cas pats her shoulder.

“I always start with my eggs,” he tells her kindly, and just to be helpful, spoons a serving onto her plate while she finishes settling down.

Three days — and two more letters from Dean — after his heat has ended, a royal carriage pulls into the drive, Cas barely out of the bath when Lucy knocks to alert him that the cute red-haired girl and the nice prince with that unfortunate hair have come to visit.

“Seeing as how no one seems keen to spirit you away, I already started some tea for them,” she adds as Cas immediately starts toward the door. “Good heavens, Castiel, put on a waistcoat!”

Cas reluctantly pivots, grabbing the first one he finds in the wardrobe, then eagerly darts into the hall.

“Thank you, Lucy. I appreciate it.”

She hums.

“But you never know! If you have any trouble at all, just scream.”

Cas gives her a distracted nod, quickly striding to the stairs.

“Of course. Thank you.”

He takes the stairs as fast as he can, lighting up when he sees Sam and Charlie in the foyer waiting, and his feet have barely made it off the last step before Charlie is flinging herself at him, squeezing tight.

He laughs and spins her, pure delight bubbling up within.

“Hello, Charlie.” He grins over her shoulder. “Sam.”

Sam grins back.

“Hey, Cas.”

“We’ve missed you like _crazy_ ,” Charlie informs him, then shifts her hold, though she doesn’t let go. Cas is supporting the bulk of her weight, at this point, but he doesn’t mind; at times like these, he finds there are, perhaps, other things about his body to be grateful for, and its strength is one of them. “Dean is totally pants at telling us anything useful about how you’re doing.”

“He is,” Sam agrees, then clears his throat. “Any chance I can get in for a hug?”

“Come back in an hour,” Charlie retorts cheerfully, and Cas smiles against her hair. “I’m still taking my turn.”

Sam sighs, and despite her words, Charlie only squeezes him for a few moments longer before she drops back to her own feet, stepping aside and giving Sam an indulgent nod.

He swoops in, an abundance of disconcertingly silky hair brushing against Cas’s face, and hugs him tight.

“The castle’s not the same without you at all,” he says, and Cas softens.

After this many months, they must be used to his absence, but still — it’s very nice to hear.

“There are many things to like, here, but it’s not the same as the castle either.” He sighs, firmly holding Sam back. “I miss you both, as well.”

Only when there’s a rapid knock at the door does Sam let go, though he leaves an arm across Cas’s shoulders, exchanging a significant look with Charlie.

“Oh, right,” she says, snapping her fingers. “We forgot a couple things in the carriage.”

Puzzled, Cas looks at the door, and with a mischievous smile back at him, Charlie moves forward and opens it.

And on the other side—

“Surprise!” Charlie crows. “We brought you a Kate!”

And before Cas can even articulate his shock and pleasure, another figure moves into view, dark hair only halfheartedly pinned and hat rakishly tilted over her smirking face.

“And a Pamela,” she says, and Cas just stares, overwhelmed.

“But — you — you came all this way . . .?”

Kate beams, and Pamela swiftly slips between her and Charlie, arms open.

“Well, of course, angel.” She winks. “Sioux Falls has its own attractions, lately; I figured we’d better come sweeten the Lawrence pot.”

Sam moves his arm, and Cas dumbly surges forward for his hug, still reeling.

“I don’t understand,” he says honestly, and she laughs, drawing him in with surprising strength.

“The future’s not set in stone, so I thought I’d better come do my part.” She pulls back a little, studying him with a smile. “Well! Don’t you look good?”

Charlie snorts.

“It’s Cas. He always looks good.”

Pamela lifts a brow, hand sliding over his shoulder and to his bicep, where she squeezes.

“Mm.” She grins. “Feels good, too.”

“Pam,” Sam says, and she chuckles.

“Relax, Sam. It’s not like Dean’s here to complain, is he?”

“Right, but _I_ am,” Kate interjects, coming to stand by them. “Now quit hogging the guy.”

“Poor little wolf,” Pamela teases, but gives Cas one last pat and steps aside for Kate to hug him.

It’s just as nice a hug as the others, yet another achingly familiar scent comforting in a way he can’t quite explain, and a part of Cas almost wants a moment to collect himself, still struggling to wrap his mind around the fact that all _four_ of them seem to have come just to see him.

“You do look good,” Kate says, smile warm. “I worry about you, you know?”

“You don’t need to,” Cas assures her. “It was hard at first, but — I’m doing well.”

She looks a little sad for a moment, but then she grins, lightly punching his shoulder.

“Well, that definitely sounds like the Cas I know. No matter how crappy the hand, you make it work.” She clears her throat, and before he can puzzle that out, steps back and gives him a pointed look. “Now, more importantly — show me how far away this river Dean carried water from is.”

Cas immediately smiles at the memory.

“Of course. You can see it from the terrace,” he adds, and gestures down the hall. “Follow me?”

The four of them proceed after him, and once they’ve made it through the terrace doors, Kate stops in her tracks.

She stares over the horizon, mouth hanging open, Pamela breaking into laughter beside her.

“One, that’s _gorgeous,_ ” Kate says, disbelieving. “Two — if I had to bring people baths from a river, I’d _quit._ ”

Cas laughs, an odd blend of happiness and wistfulness filling him.

He’s so glad to see them again, to show them this, but—

A part of him that wishes _he_ were the one arriving after a trip, meeting them all back at the castle once again.

“How do you take your tea, Kate?” Cas asks, more than a little determined, once they’re all settled in his room, she and Charlie criss-cross on the bed while Pamela sits at the table with Sam.

“Oh, I can fix it,” Kate offers, but Cas quickly tugs the tray closer to him, though it’s impossible for her to reach from the bed.

“Please allow me. You’ve always brought me things; I’d like to return the favor at lest once.”

Kate laughs.

“It was my pleasure, Cas. And also my job.”

“Still,” he insists politely. “It must have been tedious, but — you made me much more comfortable.”

Her smile softens, and she leans back, bracing herself on her palms.

“I’m glad. It really wasn’t tedious, though. Castle positions are pretty cushy.” She pauses. “You know, I almost quit when they said you were coming. I’m glad I didn’t.”

Cas gives her a surprised look.

“Why?”

“Mm. It wasn’t right, and I didn’t want to be a part of it. But then I thought — me quitting wouldn’t change anything, so I might as well try and help where I could. And it was — as I said — my pleasure.” She grins. “One sugar and a boatload of cream, though. Please and thank you.”

Cas nods slowly, that happy-wistful feeling back in his chest.

“I’m glad you didn’t, also,” he says, and carefully begins preparing her tea.

There aren’t enough chairs, but it’s nice, having his room full of guests he likes so well. It reminds him of those treasured teatimes with Sam and Charlie, of working the puzzle with Max and Susan in the parlor while his sister sews, of early, quiet mornings when Billie’s up early reading, Cas silently having his coffee across from her, of the bustle in the kitchen during meal preparation.

Cas is suddenly struck by an overwhelming sense of gratitude, because without realizing it, his life has become rather full of pleasant company, company he enjoys more than he can say, and it’s just one more thing he never expected to have.

He swallows the feeling down, moving on to the others’ tea.

He wishes Dean were here, too. He wishes Dean would be staying long after everyone else, and Cas could tell him how happy it made him to prepare the tea for everyone who’s been so very kind to him, could tell him how fortunate he feels to be visited and hugged like he wasn’t just missed, but was missed very much.

“How are things at the castle?” he manages to ask, barely resisting the urge to set down the tea and ask for another round of hugs. “Is all well?”

There are various noises of assent in response.

“Yeah, things are pretty good,” Sam says. “Same old, same old.”

Cas nods.

“That’s good.” Though, now that he thinks of it— “Do you know why Dean is traveling? He said it was a long story, and he has yet to explain in his letters.”

Sam and Charlie exchange looks.

“His letters?”

Cas smiles.

“Yes. I get one almost every day.”

Kate puts a hand over her mouth.

“Oh, my god. That adorable idiot.”

“He’s only sometimes an idiot,” Cas protests, and moves to distribute the tea. “But what did his father want him to do?”

Kate snorts, and Sam’s eyes go wide.

“Wait, Kate—"

“Apparently he told some _ridiculous_ story about a horse, and now he has to go tell everyone there’s not actually any plague.”

Beside her, Pamela shakes her head, amusement clear in her face, and Cas freezes in front of the bed, cups in hand.

“What?” He frowns, throwing Sam an uneasy glance. “Are you talking about Mary?”

Kate’s smile falters.

“Um. What?”

“Mary.” He hesitates. “Still, even without plague — a broken leg is a serious thing, especially with her other issues.”

“Bless you,” Pamela murmurs, and Kate just keeps staring.

“I’m . . . so confused?”

“Let’s let Dean explain,” Sam hastily interjects. “He — he’ll have the most up-to-date information.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely let it be Dean’s problem,” Charlie mutters, and Cas squints at them all, though he still hands Pamela and Kate their tea.

“It sounds like it is his problem. Couldn’t he just — write letters, explaining the situation?”

“Oh, but I think the King is _very_ interested in seeing Dean . . . take responsibility,” Pamela drawls. “It’s probably good for him.”

Possibly, though it seems to have been an honest mistake, and Cas’s personal feeling is that this is an unnecessary and unjust impediment to Dean’s next visit.

Still, he supposes it can’t be helped.

“In any case,” Pamela continues, sipping her tea. “The castle’s really the same as it ever is. Why don’t you tell us all about what _you’ve_ been up to?”

Cas takes a seat on the edge of the bed, briefly distracted by the bizarre exchange of looks between a confused-seeming Kate and a very uncomfortable Sam, and nods.

He’s not about to tell them _everything —_ many of the things that first come to mind are things he’d like to keep private — but he’ll do his best.

“Of course,” he agrees, and with a thought for Pamela, decides to start with the successful conversion to nightgowns of his fellow dockworkers.

Sadly, the visit feels as short as it is enjoyable.

Cas is strangely proud of showing them around town, as he was the last time he took Sam and Charlie and Dean around, although he’s a little sad they have to come in Winter. Still, he remembers his own excitement over everyone’s visits to his room in Lawrence, his pleasure at the stories they told him about the city and their various adventures in it, and he’s excited to now do the same.

He even gets to introduce them to Eloise, the woman who sells him flowers, and she tells them Cas is her best customer.

“Buys a bouquet just about every week, and doesn’t even make me listen to a sob story about what dumb thing he did that he’s trying to make up to somebody for,” she informs them, then gives everyone a flower ‘on the house,’ handing Charlie a red Camellia with a significant sort of wink.

Charlie seems rather smug when they move on to the bakery to say ‘hi’ to Samandriel and buy pastries.

Anyway, he’s even more pleased to introduce them to the rest of Mills Park at dinner, and though Max seems rather shy of them, she invites them to join the puzzle-working in the evening. Kate initially mistakes her for a child, and when Cas quietly explains that she had to run away from her husband, Pamela hooks a firm arm around Kate’s shoulders and tells her to “Settle down, little wolf. I think a little bit of justice will be served sooner than one might think.”

It’s cryptic, as Pamela clearly enjoys being, but Kate grudgingly turns her focus to the puzzle, and by the time nine o’ clock rolls around, there’s a larger-than-usual crowd in the parlor, leftover dinner laid out on the coffee table for snacking and someone at the piano, and half the girls are insisting that a man with hair as pretty as Sam’s hardly counts.

(Sam expresses some uncertainty about whether to be flattered or not.)

Still, the group is departing by ten, and they all hug Cas goodbye at the door with smiles and a promise to come by as soon as his work is finished in the morning.

The rest of the visit is similarly wonderful, and when a few days have passed and it’s time for them to leave again, Cas is surprised by how difficult it is to see them go.

“We’ll be back again,” Pamela assures him. “And who knows? Maybe someday you’ll come to us.”

Cas has been told, by several people, that Pamela is always right.

And even though she technically said ‘maybe,’ he hopes she’ll prove right in this, as well.

“This place is really cool,” Kate remarks by the carriage, looking over Mills Park with thoughtful eyes. “I like it.”

Cas nods.

“I do, as well. More than I expected to.”

She smiles.

“Well, you deserve to like where you are. But hopefully you _will_ come to see us, at some point.” She hugs him then, holding on tight. “I’ll be looking forward to the next time we see you, wherever it happens to be.”

Sam and Charlie assure him that Dean will be by as soon as earthly possible — “Seriously, I’m surprised he didn’t come to make sure everyone in Sioux Falls knew there wasn’t any plague, just to be safe.” — and by the time the final round of hugs is complete, Cas isn’t sure what’s an ache from having to see them go and what’s lingering pressure from being held so tightly.

He sees them off, a crowd at the door waving and calling goodbyes along with him, and then—

He heads back inside to begin the next wait.

Dean rides straight home from the last stop on his father’s list, takes the fastest bath he ever has, and goes to see his dad.

“The kingdom should be totally assured there’s no plague to speak of,” he announces once he has his father’s attention, hoping to get out as soon as possible, and slowly, John nods.

“Ah. Good.” He pauses. “You must be excited to be home and have a break. Relax around here for a few days.”

Dean winces internally, clearing his throat

“Yes. I, uh. I am. Except — you know, actually, _Sioux Falls_ is a great place to relax, and I was thinking, I could get some work done there, too. Kill two birds with one stone?”

He tries not to look too hopeful as his dad mulls this over, and several seconds pass, a little anxiety starting to creep in.

Obviously, if Dad says no, he says no, but — it feels like it’s been a hundred fucking years since he saw Cas.

And sure, he’s being a drama queen, but the idea of having to wait any longer seems like literal _torture._

“Sure, son,” John finally says. “I’m not gonna complain about you multi-tasking.”

Dean perks up, heart leaping.

“Oh. Okay. Awesome.” He licks his lips, already reviewing his plans. “I’ll, uh, head out in a few hours, then.”

John lifts a brow.

“You must have left Birch’s early, if you’re already here. Don’t you wanna get some sleep?”

“Oh, I can — I can nap when I get there. I’m already in a, uh, a driving mood. You know how it is.”

John nods sagely.

“That I do, son. That I do. Well, don’t drive into any ditches. Have a nice trip.”

Dean nods, projecting as much gratitude as he can without making it too obvious just how important this was to him.

“Thank you very much, your Majesty.”

And with that, he bows, then practically runs back to his room to pack.

Several days after the others leave, Cas receives a letter from Dean saying that he’s heading out to the last stop of the trip his father sent him on — honestly, Cas is still a little puzzled by the whole affair, but Dean should be able to explain when he gets there — and for three days after that, there’s nothing.

Cas tries not to worry — it’s a surprise Dean manages as many letters as he does — and given the promise at the end reassuring him Dean will set out for Mills Park as soon as he’s capable, he mostly succeeds.

It is a complete surprise, then, to return home from a trip into town one day and find Dean sound asleep on the bench in the foyer.

“Got here about an hour ago, dead on his feet, and said he’d just wait for you,” Lucy suddenly whispers from somewhere nearby, startling him. “Must be nice to feel so secure, sleeping anywhere you please like that.”

Cas instinctively raises a finger to his lips, worried Dean will stir, but he slumbers on, jacket rolled up under his head in what Cas thinks is a very poor imitation of a pillow.

Cas _told_ him not to travel tired, and a part of him is upset Dean clearly disregarded it, but—

He’s arrived, safe and sound, and Cas can’t yet find it in himself to be angry.

Anyway, if Dean _is_ tired, enough to sleep on a hard bench without a proper pillow or blanket, Cas neither wants to disturb him or let him wake up to aches and pains from his poor selection of a napping place, which means there’s only one thing to do.

Taking a deep breath, he creeps toward the bench, and then, as carefully and quietly as he can manage, he slips his hands beneath Dean and gingerly pulls him into his arms.

Lucy gasps.

“You’re not _really_ —" she starts, but Cas shoots her a quelling look, holding his breath as Dean shifts and mumbles in his grasp, and she goes silent, gaping.

Still, Dean just curls into him, and with another slow, fortifying breath, Cas stands.

Dean’s not light, by any means, but he’s certainly not as heavy as a carriage, and Cas experiences a strange thrill of pleasure at getting to hold him thus.

He gives Lucy and her continued silence an approving smile, and then, as gently as he’s able, turns and begins his ascent.

Dean barely stirs the whole journey from foyer to bed, and Cas takes the opportunity to catch his breath and rest beside him while he waits for Dean to finish napping.

It’s a little difficult to be patient, so excited is he to have Dean here again, but he forces himself to lie still next to Dean and content himself with watching. In the end, he’s surprised by how easily the minutes pass, Dean’s breaths deep and even as he dozes away beneath the tartan blanket.

He’s a little less surprised by how much he enjoys just looking at Dean, soft and relaxed in sleep, lovely as he always is. Max compared him to the princes in the fairy tales, before, but in truth, Cas thinks Dean is much, much more beautiful. Asleep and peaceful, like this, he makes Cas think of the princess, instead, waiting for true love’s kiss; of the fairest in all the land, the prince helpless but to fall in love on sight of her.

Cas reaches out, tracing the air above Dean’s cheek, chest suddenly tight.

Perhaps it wasn’t _first_ sight, but — he thinks he likes how it actually happened much better.

Still, true as his love might be, he resists the temptation to bother Dean with kisses, and instead waits patiently for him to wake.

An hour later, his patience is rewarded.

Dean jerks suddenly, sucking in a deep breath as he shifts onto his side, eyes squinting open, and he freezes when he sees Cas.

Surprise flits across his face, and his gaze bounces around the room in confusion before returning to Cas.

“Shit,” he mumbles, voice rough, and Cas swallows at the sound. “How’d I get up here?”

“I carried you,” Cas manages, resisting the urge to smoothe Dean’s hair, if only for the sake of touching him, and Dean’s mouth falls open.

And then, his eyes seem to darken, just a fraction.

“Well.” He licks his lips. “I’m sorry I missed that.”

Cas tilts his head.

“I did try to be careful. It would have been upsetting if I woke you.”

Dean smiles slightly.

“Think I’d have been okay with it,” he says, studying Cas with an unreadable look. “Though — I hope that doesn’t mean I missed my kiss hello.”

Cas smiles back.

“No. I waited.”

_Though it was very difficult,_ he doesn’t say.

Dean raises a brow.

“You been watchin’ me sleep?”

Cas simply nods.

“Yes. You’re very beautiful,” he adds, and Dean winks.

“I bet. A lot of people think I’m prettier when I finally shut up.”

It’s clearly meant to be a joke, but Cas just shakes his head.

“You’re pretty all the time, Dean. But I do like it when you speak to me.”

The smirk on Dean’s face falters a little, and he opens his mouth.

Cas waits, and when Dean continues to hesitate, prompts him.

“What?”

“Uh. Nothing. Just . . . do you mean conversations, or — or do you really like it when I speak to you . . . other times?”

Cas thinks for a moment.

And then he sighs.

“Dean. I sense that you’re asking me something more complicated than what you’re actually saying.” He pauses, debating, then adds, “Those are the times I like when you speak to me the least.”

Dean’s brows lift.

“Oh.” He blinks. And then he snorts, chin ducking slightly. “Okay. Fair. Uh. I . . . I was trying to figure out if — shit. I wanted to know if you liked it when I said stuff to you when we’re trying to have orgasms.”

Cas gives him a startled look.

“That’s not at all what you said.”

Dean bites his lip.

“No. No, it isn’t. Sorry.”

Cas decides not to make any pointed remarks about _just_ how confusing this habit is, and instead considers the actual question, thinks of Dean’s voice, low in his ear, so close Cas can feel the sound.

“Yes,” he says slowly. “I do. But — don’t talk to me the whole time. You have to kiss me — and parts of me — or else I don’t think I’ll be able to have my orgasm as easily.”

“Ah.” Dean swallows, shifting a little more onto his side, a little more toward Cas. “Okay. That’s — very clear. And fair. I . . . I can, uh, definitely do that.”

Which, Cas is glad, but now that Dean’s brought up orgasms and kissing and the sorts of things he says while all of that happens—

Cas suppresses a sigh.

His body reacts so _easily,_ these days, and he can’t help but feel like it’s primarily Dean’s fault.

“Speaking of which,” Dean continues, clearing his throat. “What time is it? Are we about to have dinner, or . . . are you . . . uh. Busy? Now?”

It’s another vague, mildly nonsensical question, and perhaps Cas should have made those pointed remarks after all.

Except actually, Cas has a tentative guess as to where Dean is headed with this, and if he’s right—

“It’s just past six. I had the dinner trays held back, and I can collect them whenever.” Cas pauses. “Are you interested in having orgasms with me before that?”

Dean immediately sits up, beaming down at him.

“You are really fucking awesome, you know that?”

Cas smiles.

“Thank you. I think you’re also ‘awesome.’” Cas looks at him, expectant. “What of my clothing should I remove?”

For some reason, instead of answering, Dean crawls over him and starts kissing him.

Cas decides the answer can wait another minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> Sexual Content: On one of the mornings of his heat, the sheet is twisted around Cas. When he moves, intending to jerk himself off, the bunched sheet ends up sliding between his buttocks. He experiences an enjoyable sensation, and though he initially tries to talk himself out of pursuing it, feeling uncertain, he ultimately gives in and strokes over himself while masturbating. He thinks of Dean and wishes he were there to hold him and kiss/bite as his neck, and when he orgasms, he imagines Dean biting him for real.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: references to the horse story, references to sex work (details/clarification in the notes if you have concerns), discussions of anilingus, discussions of kink (this conversation happens between two characters in a vaguely-historical setting; it is not at all comprehensive, so details/clarification in the notes if you have concerns), mentions of breathplay/restraints/masochism as part of that conversation (again, some details/clarification in the notes), references to past abuse/Cas’s insecurities being brought to Lawrence, I think that’s it, please let me know if I missed anything or if you feel more clarification is necessary! The story's here for you to enjoy, so if there’s something I can do/warn for/offer further explanation on to provide for a more comfortable reading experience, I am more than happy to make the effort.
> 
> So, I made a joke about a dead horse in an earlier chapter, then brought it up, _repeatedly_ , in subsequent chapters, and while not one of you was willing to deliver the real punchline to the joke, I’m afraid it’s time to lay it to rest. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were all just being polite, however ;)
> 
> On another note — the double update is because the chapter after this is almost fifteen thousand words of smut, basically? So I apologize in advance if you were hoping for any kind of plot resolution! It’s coming, I swear! ( . . . the plot resolution, I mean. That’s what’s coming.)
> 
> You’re all very wonderful, and I’m super excited to start building up to the climax with you (the climax of the story, that is)! I hope you find the update as satisfying as possible, and thank you so much for reading!! ♡

“Oh — before I forget,” Cas starts, once orgasms have been had and dinner retrieved, the pair of them tucked back in bed with their plates in what must be Cas’s absolute favorite way to share a meal. “Why did your father make you go in person to explain about the plague?”

Dean chokes on his current bite, and Cas watches nervously as he recovers, ready to try and intervene.

“Uh. That. Who, uh. Who told you about that?”

“Kate. I gather plague rumors spread.” Cas hesitates. “I’m glad if no other horses were actually afflicted, though. That must have been worrisome.”

Dean stares hard at his plate, wiping his mouth.

“Yes. Yes, it was. But nope. No, uh. No other plague cases. And I let pretty much everybody from here to Edgewater know, so . . . we should be good.”

He doesn’t meet Cas’s eyes as he says it, and Cas reaches out, squeezing his shoulder, because he understands how difficult it all must have been for Dean.

He spares a disapproving thought for the king, to make his son journey so far and relive that pain at each stop, when surely letters would have been sufficient.

“It sounds like it was Mary’s time, Dean,” he says gently. “Plague or not.”

At last, Dean meekly lifts his gaze, and Cas is at a loss as to how to read the expression therein.

“Cas . . .” he starts, clearly pained, and Cas is just about to offer a consolatory hug when Dean’s shoulders drop, nose wrinkling. “Shit. Okay. Uh. I gotta — there’s something I need to tell you.”

Cas tilts his head.

“Alright?”

Dean visibly swallows, flicking a nervous glance toward him.

“I . . . I’m not gonna ask you not to be mad, but — I just — before I tell you, I want you to know that it — I did it because in my own, really, really dumb way, I care.”

Cas squints.

“I don’t follow. Why would I be mad?” He frowns. “What did you do?”

Dean clears his throat.

“I . . . I — the thing is, I sort of — I didn’t know how to tell you the truth, so — so I lied. About the horse.”

Cas blinks.

“You did?” He thinks back, trying to pick out the falsehood, but he has no idea where it would have been. “What part did you lie about?”

Dean winces.

“No, I mean — the whole story. There — there was no horse.”

Cas stares.

“There was no horse,” he repeats, trying to wrap his mind around it, around Sam’s clear distress, around what feels like multiple conversations regarding the horse since. “At _all_?”

Dean nods.

“No. I, uh. I made her up.”

Cas blinks.

“You mean you—" He stops, still struggling. “You’re saying — Mary did not, at any point, exist?”

“Uh. No.”

“And — she did not die, of plague or anything else.”

Dean gulps.

“Nope.”

“She was neither old or blind or suffering from a broken leg.” Cas pauses. “Because she wasn’t real.”

“Uh. Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Because you — fabricated her.”

Again, Dean nods, shame apparent.

And Cas is, actually, not angry, because _mostly,_ he’s just — baffled.

“But — _why_?”

Dean hunches inward.

“Because. Because you — you wanted your nightgown back.”

Cas frowns heavily.

“Speaking of which — if you didn’t wrap your dead horse in it, what _did_ happen to my nightgown?”

Dean buries his face in his hands.

“I — I kinda stole it.”

Cas just stares.

“You stole it.” He stares harder. “You _stole_ it.”

“Yes,” Dean mumbles. “I did. I stole it.”

“Dean, you—" Cas stops, taking a deep breath, frustration creeping in, though again, he’s more bewildered than anything. “You spent a fortune on my wardrobe. And you assured me that the kingdom had the money to spare.”

“I — yes, we do, but—"

“Why could you not just buy your _own_?” Cas scowls. “That was my _favorite._ And I — do you know how many people I told about your horse? They were all extremely sorry for you, Dean. Even if you were going to lie — why on earth did you li e about a _horse_ ? That you _loved_?”

“I just — I didn’t — I panicked, okay? You wanted it back and I was trying to think of a good reason I couldn’t give it to you!”

Cas looks at him, incredulous.

“And that was _all_ you could think of?” he demands, and Dean groans.

“I’m _sorry_ , okay? I didn’t — I didn’t know you’d _tell_ anyone.”

“Having a cherished pet die, and under such tragic circumstances, is significant, Dean,” Cas says, unsympathetic to the logic. “And — more importantly, that was a wonderful nightgown. I was _extremely_ sad not to have it.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean says again, and Cas shakes his head.

“No. I don’t — I still don’t understand. You knew it was my favorite. I specifically asked for it. How could you have kept it for yourself?” He grimaces. “You’d _already_ bought your own, which you said you were pleased with.”

“Okay, _yes_ , but my nightgown was _mine,_ and I _did_ know that was your favorite, and I didn’t — it’s not that I wanted an awesome nightgown, okay? It’s that I wanted _your_ nightgown, especially because — when I took it, I didn’t think I’d see you again, and by the time I did, I was already used to sleeping in it, and I — I just — I’ll have Pamela make you a new one, just — please stop telling people my horse died.”

“Dean, I don’t care if you liked mine better, it was _mi—"_

“No! Damn it, Cas, it — it’s not because it was better, it’s because it was something of _yours,_ that you loved, and I — I _missed_ you, okay? And sleeping in your favorite nightgown made me feel better about it!” He sighs, looking at Cas, a little pleading. “It’s like the portrait, okay? I just — you weren’t there anymore, and things like your portrait and your nightgown made it easier to handle it.”

Cas’s irritation fades.

“Oh.”

“And they still do,” Dean adds, coughing. “And your pillowcases — those helped, too.”

The irritation dies out entirely, then, though he’s still a little worried about Dean’s chosen excuse.

Had it been Cas, he would have just said it was _lost_ and left it at that. To make up multiple injuries and an illness culminating in a somewhat violent mercy-killing for a beloved animal is just . . . it’s so . . .

But then again, it isn’t exactly inconsistent with Dean’s past behavior; for instance, it hadn’t been unreasonable to suppose Cas might wish him harm, when he was first brought to Lawrence, but the convoluted means which Dean anticipated him _using_ were also rather bizarre.

(Perhaps bizarre is too harsh; maybe Dean is really just ‘very creative’ without an appropriate outlet for it.)

In any case, Cas knows precisely how he feels about that tartan blanket, Dean’s scent potent in the threads, something to cling to in his absence; he knows how badly he wished to have Dean’s likeness beside him, something to look at when the longing became difficult to bear. Cas’s nightgown might not carry either his scent or appearance, but if Dean associated it with _Cas —_ if Dean misses him so badly that that was enough to prompt him to tell such a strange and terrible lie _—_

Then Cas thinks that deserves some understanding.

_However—_

“I want something of yours.”

Dean’s brows lift.

“Huh?”

“Like my nightgown. Something — meaningful, to you. For me to wear and think of you when you’re away.”

Dean seems to color before his eyes.

“You . . . you’ve got the blanket, though.”

Cas shakes his head.

“The blanket is for your scent, and then it fades. I expect a portrait, and an item of clothing you treasure.” He pauses. “Or I want my nightgown returned.”

Dean may call his bluff — Cas will be a little put out if Dean relinquishes his nightgown that easily, being somewhat enchanted by the trouble he’s gone through to keep it — but it’s certainly worth trying.

Dean’s still and silent for a moment, and then he bites his lip.

“I . . . I’ve got a grey bathrobe I’m pretty attached to. I wear it — basically, whenever I’m in my room.”

Cas pretends to think it over, then nods.

“That’s acceptable.”

“Okay.” Dean nods back, looking relieved. “Yeah, okay. I, uh. I have it with me. I’ll give it to you before I go.”

“I would appreciate that.”

“And — I’ve got a portrait. Like yours, though; I didn’t have time for anything major, but — I brought it.”

Cas gives him a pleased look.

“Good.”

“And I — I really will ask Pam to make you another.”

“I’d appreciate that, too.”

Dean swallows.

“Sorry I lied.”

Cas shrugs.

“I don’t pretend to fully understand, but — enough, at least. I forgive you, Dean,” Cas adds, just to be clear, and Dean slowly nods, shifting.

“Still. Still, I think — maybe I should — I should make it up to you.”

“You’ve already agreed to,” he points out, and Dean nods.

“Sure. But — it was pretty terrible. I should, uh. I should do more than that.”

“Such as?”

Dean shrugs.

“You can’t think of anything you want from me?”

Cas hesitates, trying not to think of his heat.

Regardless of what he might have wished for at the time, he’s not sure he has the nerve to ask _Dean_ to do that to him.

“I think . . . I’m already getting everything I want from you,” he says slowly, and Dean looks at him for a long moment.

And then he narrows his eyes.

“No,” he says slowly. “That’s not it. You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to, but — remember, Cas. You can always ask. There’s nothing wrong with asking.”

Cas shakes his head. Dean has too simple a view of the world, he thinks, or perhaps it’s just that it usually gives him what he wants.

“And I will, if I think of something,” he lies. “For now, though — let’s finish eating.”

Dean studies him for a moment longer, and then sighs.

“Okay, Cas.” He picks up his fork again. “Let’s do that.”

A polite host would probably have then invited Dean to play games or otherwise socialize in the parlor, but Cas is not a polite host, and as soon as he’s set the tray outside the door, he returns to the bed, making only a halfhearted effort not to appear expectant.

The others’ visit was an effective distraction, but Cas has found that for the most part, the puzzling phenomena from prior to his heat persist.

Dean gives him a curious smile, sprawling back against the pillows.

“What now?”

“I don’t know. I could bring some playing cards up from the parlor,” he offers, although really, he’s thinking about how earlier, Dean did nothing more than undo his trousers, and while being held and touched after weeks of craving was certainly an intense and wonderful experience, Cas has decided he prefers Dean unclothed for such activities.

Dean lights up.

“Yeah, sure. That’d be great. It’s been a while since I got to play cards with you.”

Which is _true_ , but still, Cas tries not to frown.

“Ah. I’ll . . . do that, then.”

“What were you thinking we’d play?”

“Not poker,” Cas mutters, incredibly reluctant to actually go down the stairs and then come back up to focus on a _card_ game.

Dean laughs.

“C’mon, it wouldn’t be that bad. Besides, you’ve probably gotten some practice in since you moved here, right?”

“Not really. I wasn’t very social, the first few months, and it’s not a house favorite.”

Dean hums.

“Alright, we’ll play something else.” He cocks his head. “You seem a little tired. Want me to get them?”

Cas suppresses a sigh.

“No, that’s alright. I will. Just . . . wait here. I can bring a fresh pitcher of water while I’m down there.”

Resigned, Cas slides off the bed and heads for the door.

Dean’s never played a worse game of cards — of any kind — in his life, but needs must, as they say.

Cas seems disappointed when Dean leaves on time for once, but Dean’s not sure he can play another round of gin without flinging the cards aside and tackling Cas to the bed (Cas’s card-playing squint is _sexy as hell,_ for the record ) and he’s determined to make sure he and Cas don’t just spend the entirety of Dean’s visit in Cas’s bed, because Cas is his _best friend,_ damn it, not his mistress, and he deserves better than a lust-crazed alpha staring into his eyes and rutting against him between the sheets for three days straight.

Besides, it’s not like playing cards and talking with Cas isn’t _fun_ ; it’s just that Dean’s very in love with him and he hasn’t seen him in weeks and all of his instincts think that means stashing him in a cozy nest to make love to for half a week is a complete no-brainer.

 _However_ , since Dean does have a (mostly) working brain, he’d like to do whatever it is he’s doing here _right_ , and unless Cas is the one asking, Dean can totally behave himself and focus on other things.

Well, until he can’t, hence being back at Bobby’s by nine-thirty, but — look. He did his best.

(And if Dean noticed a disturbingly prominent red mark on Cas’s neck when they kissed goodbye at the door, one he has only very hazy memories of leaving during the before-dinner orgasms, he just decides that it’s not misbehavior unless the skin is broken.)

Anyway, despite the residual tiredness, Dean finds himself wide-awake and restless once he’s made it into bed. He feels — weird, about leaving Cas behind at Mills Park, even though he should probably be used to it now and it’s not like there are any other options. His bed at Bobby’s just feels emptier than usual, and if Dean’s being perfectly honest, the last few weeks were kind of difficult.

It felt like he was missing Cas _constantly._ And sure, Dean kind of felt like that before, but this time, it seemed way less like wishful thinking and more like — like an expectation thwarted.

Dean always _wants_ Cas to be there, thinks he’ s probably felt that way since shortly after Cas first came to Lawrence — but over the last few weeks, he’s struggled to shake the feeling that Cas _should_ be, just as a matter of course.

It’s just — it’s been hard on him.

And no matter how nice it felt to get Cas warm and close and all worked up on top of him, no matter how good it felt to perch together on the bed, sharing a meal, to hear Cas demand something that belongs to Dean, like maybe it’d be to him what the nightgown’s been to Dean _—_

Now Dean is all alone in his bed, and none of that feels quite like enough. He’s exhausted and worn out and all he wants to do is put his clothes back on and make the drive to Mills Park, because even though he’s never been used to falling asleep with someone else, every ounce of his being has been telling him, for weeks, that now’s a good time to start.

Needless to say, Dean’s instincts are _stupid_. Mills Park could welcome him for a three day sleepover with open arms and ten pounds of confetti hurled into the air, and he would still be going home alone at the end of it.

No, the best Dean can do is make the most of the time he gets, and since brain and body have _slightly_ different ideas about what ‘make the most of’ means, alone in Cas’s room is probably not the best place to do it.

_However . . ._

Dean grins at the canopy, suddenly excited for the morning.

He thinks he he has an idea.

“So, uh. I was thinking.”

“What were you thinking?” Cas murmurs back, and really, it is way too fucking cold for them to still be trying to have breakfast at dawn on the terrace. If they weren’t practically stacked on top of each other and wrapped in a thick wool blanket, Dean’s not sure they’d be able to _talk,_ their teeth would be chattering so hard.

As it is, breakfast has been cold since they put it on their plates, and Cas keeps sticking his icy face into Dean’s neck any time he’s not speaking or chewing.

(It’s kind of cute.)

(But also cold.)

(But really, really cute.)

“You’ve got work today, right?”

“I do,” Cas agrees, nose trailing down what’s accessible of Dean’s neck — for warmth, no doubt. “Unfortunately. What about you?”

“Well, that’s what I was thinking. Maybe I could come with you?”

Cas stills, nose right behind Dean’s ear, and Dean resists the urge to pull back and kiss him instead.

Cas has a physically demanding job, and he needs to eat a hearty breakfast to have the energy to do it, and since Dean’s pretty sure that as soon as they start kissing, crows could carry off their entire breakfast, place settings included, without either one of them noticing, he’s determined to behave.

He reaches for an apple wedge while Cas apparently contemplates this, wondering how weird it would be to try and feed half of it to Cas so Cas didn’t have to untuck himself.

“You want to come to work with me.”

“Yeah.”

Dean hesitates, then snaps the wedge in two. He turns his head a little as he lifts one half to Cas in offering, and Cas shifts against him, though he seems content just to look at it for a moment.

“Won’t that be boring for you?”

“Not necessarily? Actually, I figured I’d just — help. It’s, uh, mostly carrying stuff around, right?”

“Right,” Cas agrees, then suddenly tips his head forward, pulling the apple wedge between his teeth.

Dean thinks he feels a swipe of tongue against his finger, and his heart lurches unevenly.

“Okay, so . . . yeah. Then I could spend the day with you, still.”

Cas chews slowly, fresh apple a complementary enhancement to his scent that has Dean’s mouth watering, and he just barely remembers to put his own half in his mouth.

“So we’d work together,” Cas clarifies, and Dean nods as he chews. “I see.”

God, that sweet, juicy scent is _powerful_ , especially with all the cold morning mist coming in off the river.

He swallows, reaching for another wedge and holding it up in question.

Cas just leans his head back against Dean’s shoulder and parts his lips, waiting, and yeah, _this_ is why being holed up together in Cas’s room is such a bad idea. Dean’s as stiff from cold as he is from other things, but he wants to pull Cas into his lap and try to put them both in a _really_ good mood before work, anyway.

“So . . . what do you think? Sound good?” he asks, mouth dry.

“Mr. Dryer will have to approve, but — yes. It sounds very good.” Cas pauses. “Give me the apple, Dean.”

Flushing, Dean pushes the piece of apple between Cas’s lips, flinching as he hears it snap between his teeth.

The angle’s not good for looking at Cas, their heads pressed together like this, but in Dean’s peripheral, he can just barely see Cas lick the juice off his lips. He gulps, hoping Cas can’t feel how fast his pulse is.

(Or smell how fucking turned on feeding Cas an _apple_ is getting him.)

“You, uh. You finished eating? Should we head over there?”

Cas pulls away, at that, frowning slightly, nose inches from Dean’s.

“But — we usually kiss after breakfast. There’s time.”

 _Yes, but I’m a total fucking deviant and apparently frigid weather isn’t enough to stop me from getting it up for you at ass o’ clock in the morning while_ _you’re innocently_ _eat_ _ing_ _breakfast._

But Dean can’t say that, because they’re on the _terrace,_ in full view of half the bedroom windows of Mills Park, and Cas might think Dean’s asking him to do something about it.

He’s not, of course. The blanket doesn’t hide _that_ much, and also, if Cas isn’t in the mood, then Dean isn’t, either, because he’s here so they can spend time together, damn it, and maybe hope Cas’ll fall in love with him along the way.

(At least, he can _pretend_ he isn’t in the mood.)

“Okay. Uh. Maybe — maybe just for a bit.”

Cas looks relieved, for some reason, but then he’s tilting his head and shutting his eyes and closing the distance between them and yeah, okay, this is fine.

Dean diligently reaches for the edge of the blanket, pulling it more tightly around Cas, and just for a little bit, gets lost in kissing him back.

A very burly man with an _incredibly_ tidy moustache stares Dean up-and-down at the dock for what feels like a solid minute, arms crossed, before he at last turns to Cas, one brow raised.

“I’m not paying him, too, for the record.”

Dean clears his throat.

“No need to, sir,” Dean assures him. “I’m just, uh. Here to spend time with Cas. But also do work. Obviously.”

He coughs, taking heart in the approving look Cas sends him, and the burly man just squints for a moment.

And then he chuckles, eyes turning about a hundred times more friendly in a single blink, and all of Dean’s sudden reservations about who Cas has to work with begin to fade.

“You know, my Maddie — when we were young, and I cleaned the ships, she’d come scrub the deck with me so we’d have a little time after to canoodle before she had her shift at the tavern.” He winks. “This one might just be worth holding onto, Mr. Novak. Just so long as the work gets done.”

Cas nods quickly, Dean utterly speechless beside him.”

“Yes. It will. I’ve supervised Dean in my garden countless times, and he’s very competent, as long as you instruct him correctly.”

Dean frowns.

“Wait, what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you have underdeveloped instincts for weeding,” Cas murmurs gently, then informs Mr. Dryer: “But he’s a fast learner, and I think this should be more straightforward.”

Mr. Dryer clucks sympathetically.

“Ah, alphas. They do need ‘straightforward.’ Well, you boys had better get to work then.” He grins. “Enjoy yourselves.”

With that, he saunters off down the dock, and when Cas turns to Dean, he’s smiling so brightly Dean doesn’t even have the heart to complain about what just transpired.

“This way,” Cas says, gesturing toward a large ship. “She docked last night; there’s a number system, for arranging the crates on the carts to take to the warehouse, but it really isn’t difficult.”

Dean huffs a laugh, and smiles back.

“Sure. Lead the way.”

As it turns out, Mr. Dryer had every right to be worried, because _holy shit,_ the only reason Dean gets any work done at all is because picking up a crate and carrying it somewhere means he gets to trail after Cas watching him do the same.

Like, sure, okay, Dean saw him lift the carriage, but — Cas is so fucking _strong._ The sun is risen, shining warm over the bay, and within an hour, Cas has stripped down to his undershirt, back and biceps straining through the thin fabric, and if the damn thing were any less opaque, all Dean would be able to carry was a _bucket,_ necessary to catch his drool.

Anyway, he’s not sweating too bad — he’s definitely grateful for all the training he does, although he’s not sure Cas isn’t just as, if not more, fit than he is — but he follows suit, and the way Cas stops short, giving him a long, unreadable-but-actually-kind-of-maybe-readable look helps things not at all.

“What, uh. What do you do in the summer?” Dean asks on their way back up the ramp. “When it gets . . . really hot, I mean. About your — your shirt.”

Cas gives him a surprised look.

“Oh. The same thing.” He looks down. “On especially hot days, some men take off their undershirt, as well.”

Dean doesn’t have to ask why Cas doesn’t.

“Ah. Must be kinda nice, when the weather cools off. This is hard work.”

Cas nods.

“It is. It’s difficult to get started, on days like this, but after a while — it’s very comfortable.” He pauses. “Much more so than doing fieldwork in a long-sleeved dress.”

Dean winces, shifting the crate to be loaded slightly as they approach the steps into the hull.

“Yeah. I’ll bet.”

Cas smiles.

“The modesty rules for omegas here don’t seem to apply to me, as a man.” He starts down the steps, and Dean can tell he’s done this a lot, seems to know just how to maneuver quickly and efficiently without fucking over his knees. “It’s interesting. Anna said it was useful, what I was — that it wouldn’t have worked the same, had it been her. People do seem to have a lot of different ideas about me.”

Dean swallows.

He has a lot of ‘different’ ideas about Cas, too, but not really about what he is.

Mostly just about what they could be doing to each other.

He follows Cas to the section of hull where this sequence of numbers apparently goes, stacking his crate atop one of the others as directed, and forces himself to focus on the actual conversation.

“Does it, uh. Bother you? That she . . .” Dean trails off, hesitating. He doesn’t want to say ‘used you,’ but he’s not really sure how else to put it.

Cas turns to face him, tilting his head.

“That she what?”

“Uh. Worked the male omega angle?”

“Oh.” Cas glances to the pile of crates, contemplative. “It did. Or rather — I was bothered that she wanted to involve me at all. When I came here, I just — I just wanted to be left alone and forgotten.”

Which — Dean doesn’t really know what to say to that, but then Cas looks up, smiling slightly.

“Now, though — I understand. I think it’s a small price to pay, if it brings about good.”

Dean nods slowly.

“Still. After everything that happened — it doesn’t seem fair that you should be the one who pays it.”

Cas shrugs, and after a beat, starts toward one of the crates to be unloaded.

“Those things have already happened to me, though. There’s no undoing them. In which case — it’s a relief, in some ways, to imagine it wasn’t entirely pointless.” He smiles a little wider, eyes warm as he glances back to Dean. “I don’t regret it, Dean. At this point — I don’t regret any of it.”

Dean’s heart trips a little, though he tries to remind himself that Cas has built a whole life here in Sioux Falls, the kind he probably never thought he’d get, and Dean is probably the least of what he’s talking about.

“I’m glad,” he manages, following him. “And . . . obviously, it matters how you feel, not me, but — I’m glad you ended up here, too.”

Cas pauses, hands resting on either side of a crate, quiet for a moment.

And then he lets go of it, turning, and steps forward to meet Dean in a brief, soft kiss.

Like most of the days Dean is in Sioux Falls, Cas thinks this one is absolutely wonderful.

 _Any_ day that begins with breakfast with Dean, sharing a blanket with him, being fed _apples_ directly from his fingertips, and goes on to include an opportunity for close observation of Dean’s remarkable physique as he participates in strenuous activity just to spend time with Cas is probably a wonderful day, but the obviousness of its merit does nothing to dampen Cas’s enjoyment.

That is, until someone tries to _ruin it._

“My _God,_ what a beautiful man!”

Cas’s hackles rise instantly, the voice and tone as obnoxious as it is familiar, and to his irritation, it continues.

“What are you, darling? Alpha, beta, omega?” There’s a chuckle, and Cas straightens, turning away from the cart, temper ready. “You’re an alpha, aren’t you? I can’t smell you, but you’re looking at me like you’re thinking about how easily you can take me apart — and not in the fun way.”

Cas glances to the side, where Dean is indeed staring back up at the man high on the deck of a nearby boat, green eyes narrowed and shoulders set in a way that briefly derails Cas’s own irritation, not that he’s quite sure why.

He shakes the feeling off, turning back to the boat, and Wallace grins, gaze turning to Cas.

“Don’t worry, love, I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to your fine new colleague, there.” He whistles. “Just look at that _mouth._ He’d make a killing as a companion, whatever he is; there’s something in him for everyone, I think.”

Cas moves in front of Dean, fists clenched at his sides as he glowers back.

“He’s not interested. He has better prospects.”

“Cas—"

Wallace raises his brows.

“Are you quite sure? He hasn’t heard these ones—"

“I’m _sure,_ ” Cas growls, and Wallace chuckles.

“Oh, settle down, lad. I was just offering.”

He feels Dean’s hand on his shoulder, gently tugging.

“Cas, you don’t—"

He ignores it.

“Take your offers elsewhere, then,” Cas snaps, determined to have him leave and stop — stop _ogling_ Dean, as they say, but Wallace simply chortles louder.

“God, I’m not sure which of you I envy more! Say, maybe you’d both be interested in putting on some shows—"

Cas lurches forward, free of Dean’s grip and toward the boat’s ramp, and Wallace quickly scrambles away from the edge of the deck, though he’s still laughing.

“Seriously, _Cas_ —"

“Alright, alright. I can see you won’t let me have him, whether he’s interested or not. You boys enjoy your afternoon.”

Cas stops, squinting suspiciously, but with a final wave, Wallace retreats back to whatever dank, unfortunate cabin he must have crawled out from.

He takes a deep breath, turning back to Dean, who looks at once amused and frustrated.

“Cas,” he says dryly. “Are you good?”

Cas scowls.

“No. I dislike him. He shouts at passersby and tries to lure them into hiring themselves out for men to bed. Anna told me people like that are horrible.”

Dean softens, though he shoots the boat a troubled glance.

“Well, supposedly, we’ve got regulations for that kind of thing, so they shouldn’t actually be _horrible_ , even if some of ‘em can come off kind of skeezy. If he’s around that often and trying his pitch in broad daylight, though, he’s probably legitimate.

Cas looks back blankly.

“I don’t know about that, but — she just said they can’t be trusted, and to make it clear their offers are a nuisance. Which they are,” he adds, throwing the boat another dark look.

Dean is an alpha _prince,_ heir to the throne of Winchester, and for the likes of Wallace to think he could ever barter Dean’s body and attentions away to his doubtless undeserving clients is just—

Cas swallows down another growl, and Dean gives him a puzzled look.

“Okay. Well. I can send someone to check him out, make sure it’s all above board?” Dean grins. “At the very least, inspections are a pain in the ass.”

Cas perks up a little, at that.

“Alright. _He_ is a ‘pain in the ass,’” he adds under his breath. “He deserves it either way.”

Dean nods.

And then he smiles for some reason.

“Thanks for defending my honor, anyway.”

“As if your honor could be threatened by him,” Cas scoffs. “But he wanted you to — the idea is _ridiculous_. And offensive.”

Dean bites his lip.

“Yeah?” He cocks his head. “You know, some people go into that ‘cause they like giving people orgasms, so long as they’re treated right and it pays well.”

Cas looks at him, alarmed, because in his experience, _yes,_ Dean likes providing orgasms, almost certainly more than other alphas probably do, but—

“But — you can’t.” He hesitates. “Dean, you’re supposed to be King someday. You can’t spend your days giving anyone else orgasms.”

Dean’s smile falters, brows lifting.

“Uh.”

“That is to say — you’re busy. You have a limited amount of time for that. It’s not, um. It wouldn’t be a practical decision, to contract yourself for anything more. And — and you don’t need money.”

Of course, Cas would absolutely forgo flowers and savings and whatever else if turning his discretionary income over to Dean in exchange for orgasms were the only way he could have them from him, although — thinking of converting to such an arrangement leaves him feeling rather sour, and not because he begrudges spending the money.

Dean just sort of looks at him for a moment, wide-eyed.

“You . . .” he starts. “You really, really don’t like that idea, do you? Me giving a bunch of other people orgasms?”

Cas grimaces.

He really doesn’t.

Actually, he’s pretty sure he _despises_ it, with a ferocity that makes his aversion to cabbage seem _laughable._

“It seems unwise, given the extent of your other obligations.”

Dean swallows.

“Well, I don’t, uh. I don’t know about my other obligations, but — you’re right that I don’t need money, and as far as liking to give other people orgasms . . . you know, whether I enjoy it or not really depends on the person I’m giving them to.”

Cas quickly nods.

“That makes sense. Susan says that’s normal.” At least, that sounds _similar_ to something she said was normal, and if Cas has extrapolated incorrectly, well — it can’t be helped. “We were right to send Wallace away.”

“Definitely,” Dean agrees. “Besides, there’s only one person I’m interested in giving orgasms to, so yeah. It just wouldn’t work out.”

Cas sucks in a breath, trying not to look too hopeful.

(Given that Dean gave him one yesterday before dinner, though, he’s extremely hopeful.)

Dean laughs, but not unkindly.

If anything, Cas would say he sounds — happy.

Very happy.

“Yeah, Cas. You. Obviously.”

Cas smiles back, relief filling him.

Wallace and monetary arrangements aside — he would have hated it, if Dean had said anything different.

“Alright. Good.” He hesitates, lingering anxiety spurring him on. “Can we, later? After baths, and dinner?”

Dean glances around them briefly, then shuffles close, reaching out to touch Cas’s cheek, still grinning wide.

“Looking forward to it, Cas,” he says, and then he kisses him, soft and sweet, and moves to pick up a crate.

The smile never leaves his face.

“Your highness. Clear something up for us. Did you or did you not fight thirty men singlehanded in the Forsaken Forest?”

Dean pauses over his sandwich, looking startled.

“Uh. No? Like, maybe if you put all the groups together, it was a few dozen, but — the most I ever fought at once was maybe a group of ten? And technically, I didn’t win. I kinda ended up falling off a small cliff and I don’t think they thought I was worth pursuing.”

Cas gives him an alarmed look. This isn’t a story anyone’s told him before.

“Were you alright?”

Dean shrugs, clearly unconcerned.

“Oh, yeah. Got a pretty nasty scar on my knee from the landing, though.”

“Ten, though!” Mr. Wilkins says eagerly. “And you’re here to tell the tale!” He looks at Dean with hopeful eyes. “Can we see the scar?”

Dean chuckles.

“Sure, if you want,” he agrees, setting aside the sandwich.

And then Dean pulls his trouser leg up, all the way past the knee until it bunches tight, and while the men around Cas make impressed noises at the painful-looking ridge of scar tissue, Cas finds himself impressed for a different reason.

He tries to wet his dry mouth, staring at the curve of Dean’s calf muscle, the long, lean line of his leg, half of it bare in a way Cas has failed to try and examine before. He remembers Dean walking out in the towel, putting on the drawers, crawling over Cas the night of the festival, wandering through Cas’s bedroom without a stitch of clothing to cover him, even, but in hindsight, he’d been preoccupied every single time, either with some other body part or simply with what was happening.

He’s not preoccupied now, though, and a part of him wishes Dean had an interesting birthmark on his thigh or something else of the sort, because Cas is suddenly keenly interested in getting to examine the rest of his bare leg in detail.

He traces its path with his gaze, anyway, the fabric of Dean’s trousers pulling across it in a way that reveals its shape well enough, and Cas suddenly finds himself thinking of how it feels underneath him, muscle flexing as Cas sits astride Dean and rocks against it.

He’s never done it when Dean’s leg was bare, though. Rubbing against Dean always feels better when they’re flesh to flesh; maybe Cas should ask to try it.

Of course, thinking about Dean’s bare skin causes him to study the rest of his clothed body, curious to find out what he’s properly managed to pay attention to, at least enough to recall from memory, and when he’s at last made it to Dean’s face, he’s disappointed to find that it’s sadly little.

He knows he enjoys looking at Dean’s natural form, knows it’s beautiful, that all of Wallace’s unscrupulous clients would probably pay just to view it, never mind have Dean indulge them in other ways, but . . .

It’s fuzzy.

Cas should ask for a better look. Dean said it was alright, now, didn’t he?

Cas should take advantage while he’s able.

Anyway, to his surprise, he finds Dean looking back at him, lips parted and eyes wide. Cas doesn’t quite understand the look, but some deep, instinctive part of him likes it, very much, and he suddenly wishes it were already time to go home and have their baths.

Abruptly, a few of the other men cough, several of them beginning to pack up their lunch tins.

“Well, we’d best be getting back to work. It was a pleasure, your highness.”

“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, same. Nice meeting you all.”

“Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of you,” Mr. Potts says, sending Cas a wink, and Cas immediately frowns at him.

He doesn’t want them to see more of Dean, no matter how pleasant he finds them.

Mr. Potts’ face falls, and belatedly, Cas realizes what he _probably_ meant.

“Yes.” He quickly smiles, awkwardly nodding back. “Yes, I enjoy having lunch with you all very much. It would be nice if Dean could do the same.”

The troubled look turns bemused, but after a pause, Mr. Potts just shakes his head and smiles.

“Well, I certainly won’t be surprised,” he says, and with a friendly wave, heads back down the dock with some of the others.

Dean exchanges pleasantries with the remainder, and after another minute, they’re left alone.

Dean clears his throat.

“You, uh. You doin’ okay, over there?”

Cas blinks at the mere half-meter or so separating them, and Dean snorts.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes. I’m doing okay.” Cas pauses. “I think we can return to Mills Park once we’re done with the unloading.”

“Oh, awesome.” Dean picks his sandwich back up, though he keeps looking at Cas. “What, uh. What were you thinkin’ about? Looked like you . . . went away for a sec.”

Cas glances down.

“Ah. Yes. Sorry, you showed them your leg, and — I was thinking about the rest of you.”

Dean chokes, and Cas quickly leans forward, putting a hand on his back.

(Dean’s still in his thin, insubstantial undershirt. He feels very nice.)

“Are you alright?”

“Mm,” Dean swallows, coughing. “Yeah. Yeah, just — uh. Went down the wrong pipe.”

Cas immediately reaches for his water flask, offering it to him, and Dean accepts it with a grateful smile, though he still looks a little stunned.

“Thanks, man.”

“Of course.” He gives Dean another firm pat, rubbing his back for good measure — Dean’s gaze flicks to his, sharp — and then reluctantly pulls his hand away. “I’m sorry you have a scar, though.”

Dean shrugs, relaxing a little, and smiles at him.

“No shame in scars,” he offers. “Just means you’ve lived.” He pauses. “Means you survived.”

Cas automatically looks down at Dean’s lower leg, though his trouser is covering the scar once more.

“I’m grateful that you did,” he says honestly.

Dean nods, and after a beat, he reaches across the space between empty crates, lightly taking Cas’s hand and lacing their fingers.

“Me, too, Cas,” he says quietly, then squeezes. “C’mon. Let’s go finish up.”

Today, Cas was _jealous_.

Cas was _totally_ jealous, practically had a meltdown (fine, maybe Dean’s exaggerating) at the idea of Dean having sex with other people, for money or otherwise, and then he was _happy_ when Dean told him he was the only one he wanted to give orgasms to.

And while that’s not a guarantee of anything romantic, necessarily, an omega getting that possessive over somebody means they’ve got to care in _some_ way, doesn’t it? Alphas might piss on a tree if they think it’s about to shade someone else, but omegas don’t lay it out like that unless it’s _personal_.

At the very least, Cas would be upset if he wasn’t getting certain favors from Dean anymore, and while that might also just mean Cas is lazy or has trust issues, Dean’s going to pretend it’s a sign of a preference. Cas spends whole days with a bunch of fit dudes in their undershirts, a lot of whom are actually pretty decent-looking, if potentially already mated, and Dean doesn’t even need to go over how hot _Cas_ is, so the fact that Cas still just wants all his orgasms from Dean is a good sign, isn’t it?

Dean — he definitely has a foot in the door here, doesn’t he?

Like, not even Dean could explain away the scent Cas ended up giving off at lunch today, even if he could pretend Cas’s eyes trailing slowly over his body was just Cas zoning out or something. And it wasn’t just his imagination either; those guys beat a hasty retreat for a reason, because Cas was _totally_ checking Dean out and the conclusion his body had clearly reached was ‘yeah, he’ll do.’

And then he basically _admitted_ it, which — yeah, Dean’s lucky his sandwich didn’t kill him.

Of course, Cas could just be gearing up for a heat or something, but still.

Dean feels giddy the whole rest of the day.

Anyway, they’re back at Mills Park and hauling buckets up by three o’ clock, Cas sending him all kinds of soft, warm looks all the while, and even though Dean is totally ready to torture himself by painstakingly bathing Cas in the slow, sexy way he clearly likes, only to then have to scrub himself down as fast as possible so Cas doesn’t change his mind about the orgasms, he’s surprised to be informed that they’ll be bathing simultaneously.

“In case we end up playing cards again,” Cas explains.

Dean has no idea what the hell that means — maybe Cas is bummed Dean ducked out on gin early last night and wants like, a marathon session today — but he goes ahead and nods anyway, because he’s here for Cas and however Cas ends up wanting to do things is fine by him.

(Like, come on. Cas got jealous over him today. He growled at a guy for trying to contract Dean to be a companion. Hell, Cas even stood in _front_ of him, like he was ready to physically block it from happening!)

(That’s a big deal, isn’t it?)

“Sure,” he agrees, and then he awkwardly strips out of his clothes, conscious of Cas just standing there, watching. “You, uh. You gonna get in?”

“Yes. Sorry.” Cas reaches for his waistcoat, though his eyes clearly still linger. “When you showed them your scar, I realized I hadn’t looked at you enough.”

Dean stops, trouser leg still pooled around one foot.

“Your body, I mean,” Cas amends, meeting Dean’s eyes with a smile. “I know your face well.”

Dean thought, once, that Cas was trying to seduce him.

He was a _fool_.

“Okay. Well. Like I said. If you wanna look, it’s yours.”

Cas blinks.

“I mean you’re welcome to it.” Dean coughs. “I mean, to do it. To look at it. You know, uh — go ahead.”

Cas nods.

“Thank you. I will.”

“What about me?” Dean blurts out.

“What?”

“How much can I look at?”

There’s a flicker of uncertainty, Cas glancing to the side.

“I . . . what you’ve touched. You can look at anything you’ve touched.”

It’s a testament to just how terrible Dean is that his first thought is, _oh, well, I better touch more stuff,_ _then._

“Okay. I, uh. I’ve bathed you, Cas.”

Cas nods.

“You have.”

“So . . . technically, I’ve touched everything but your back, and your—"

“Yes,” Cas interrupts quickly, rubbing his neck. “You have. And you may look at it, if you insist. But we should hurry with our baths.”

Dean nods, shaking free of his trousers, and steps into the tub.

“Why are we hurrying, again?”

“In case we run out of time,” Cas mumbles.

“Right. ‘Cause you want to play more cards.”

At that, Cas gives him a sharp look.

“I do not,” he says firmly. “But you might.”

“Uh, not necessarily. I just — I wanna do whatever you wanna do.”

Cas narrows his eyes, quiet for a moment.

And then he shakes his head, hands returning to his buttons.

“I doubt that,” he mutters, and since he’s shrugging free of his shirt a few moments later, bare chest and shoulders exposed for Dean’s unabashed perusal, Dean decides he’ll ask later. “Still. It’s a cold day; let’s be quick.”

Wordlessly nodding his agreement, Dean lowers himself into the water.

And then—

He hurries.

Cas is in no mood for sexy torture today; he had enough regular torture (hours of playing cards when he would have liked a more even split between cards and Dean touching him) last night, and then had plenty of partial sexy torture (Dean in his sweat-damp undershirt, carrying crates up and down the ramp, a charmingly unmistakable march of bowlegs) today, and since he _also_ had to endure thoughts of Dean giving other people orgasms—

Well, he thinks he’s willing to forgo the pleasantries of bathing if it means the other touching will happen in a more timely fashion.

Of course, the plan works much better in theory, because once they’re out and dried off, Dean is asking Cas if he wants a nightgown and Cas is left in the awkward position of articulating that he doesn’t want either _o_ _ne_ of them to be dressed for a little while.

This was much easier last time, when they were already kissing, and relocating to the bed seemed wildly and obviously urgent.

(Maybe Cas should have asked Dean to bathe him after all?)

Except then they would have had to bathe in sequence, and no matter how enjoyable it probably would have been, it would have set him back even further.

Cas suppresses a sigh.

Negotiating these things is just so _difficult_ , no matter how many reassurances you’ve been given.

“Cas?”

“Um. Eventually.”

Dean blinks.

“Oh. But . . . not right away.”

Cas shakes his head.

“No, not right away.”

“Okay.” Dean clears his throat. “Well, it looks like it’s about — almost four-thirty. How long until dinner?”

“A little more than an hour, about?”

Dean nods.

“Sounds good. Although — if you, uh. If you don’t want a nightgown, we should maybe think about getting you under the covers.”

Cas perks up.

There’s a thought. Maybe if Cas can get Dean into the bed, and they don’t have any clothing anyway, he can instigate kisses and wait until proposing orgasms seems like a more natural progression than just asking outright.

“I’d like that.”

Dean just sort of nods, then nudges aside the cover, slipping into the bed and scooting all the way over.

Cas takes a deep breath and follows, settling on his back and debating how best to approach this.

He’s not usually naked in his bed, though, and without much else to distract him, he’s pleased to find that it feels kind of nice.

“So . . . what did you wanna do while we waited?” Dean asks, once they’ve been lying together in silence for a minute. “Did, uh, did Anna say anything about how she wants to handle speaking and print distribution?”

Cas tries not to frown at the mention of his sister.

“Um. Yes.”

Another pause.

“Neat. What, uh. What did she say?”

Nothing Cas cares to repeat, at this moment, because that would involve thinking about Anna and things Anna said to him and presently, all Cas really wants to think about is Dean’s penis touching his.

“That she’s going to distribute prints and speak,” he mutters.

“Ah,” is all Dean says, and then he clears his throat. “You, uh. You smell nice.”

“Thank you.” Cas instinctively scents the air, pleased by the richness to the woodsy scent Dean is giving off beside him. That’s usually a good sign. “You smell nice, too.”

“Thanks,” Dean mumbles.

More silence follows, and then Dean takes a deep breath.

“So, read any good books la—"

“May I kiss you?” Cas interrupts, shifting onto his side, and Dean’s mouth shuts.

And then he bursts out laughing, rolling over to face Cas, hand immediately reaching out to cup his cheek.

“Yeah, of course. I was kinda waiting.”

“What?” Cas wriggles closer, covering Dean’s hand with one of his own. “Why would you wait?”

“Just — in case I was wrong. If you really wanted to just . . . lie down and talk, that — you know, that’s great, too.”

“You weren’t wrong.” Cas hesitates. “And — we can lie and talk afterward, but I don’t — it’s not just kisses, I also want — if you’re interested, I’d like to have orgasms.”

Dean blinks — his eyes are so _pretty —_ and then laughs.

“Yeah, of course. I’m, uh — very interested.”

Cas nods.

“Alright. Then . . . I’m going to kiss you.”

Dean nods back, still grinning.

“Okay. Please do.”

Which — perhaps it’s not just alphas that like things straightforward, Cas thinks, and with considerably greater confidence, shifts closer and presses his lips to Dean’s.

Dean’s grin softens, fortunately, and he leans into it, hand shifting against Cas’s cheek, and Cas appreciates the gentleness to the touch, but also he’s been _aching_ to kiss Dean all day, has technically been craving whatever of Dean’s touches he can imagine for weeks beforehand, and last night was not nearly enough to satisfy any of it.

He rolls onto his back, tugging Dean with him, warmth suffusing him as Dean’s skin fits flush against his own.

Dean makes a startled sound, but then he bears down slightly, kissing Cas harder, and pleasant chills ripple through him.

“After dinner—" he mumbles, angling his head and reaching up to run his fingers through Dean’s hair, and Dean hums, tongue teasing at his lips.

“Yeah?”

“I’d rather not play cards the whole time.”

Dean pauses, mouth hovering warmly over Cas’s.

“What else do you wanna do?”

 _Straightforward,_ Cas reminds himself, and takes a deep breath.

“This,” he whispers, and tilts his chin up to resume the kiss.

The primary difficulty, Cas decides, is that Dean touching him seems to just make him want Dean to touch him _more._

He would think that, at the very least, he could get through a meal without any wandering thoughts, now that his wanting has so recently been satisfied, but—

If anything, it’s making him _more_ preoccupied.

If anything, it’s making him focus on a want that has _not_ been satisfied, on a want he hadn’t expected to share _,_ let alone have answered.

“Somethin’ wrong with your chicken?”

Cas starts.

“What chicken?”

Dean’s gaze flicks to the plate.

“Uh. The . . . one you’re eating.”

“Oh. The — I thought you meant a — yes, I see.” Cas clears his throat. “No. No, my chicken is fine.”

“Okay.” Dean hesitates, concern creeping into his expression. “What about you? Are you fine?”

“Yes?” Cas is pretty sure whatever discomfort he’s experiencing doesn’t count as a problem, at least not for anyone else.

Dean nods slowly.

“Alright. That’s good.” There’s an uneasy pause, and then Dean sets down his fork. “But . . . if you’re ever not fine, after — after we do something, even if you’ve been fine with it other times — we can talk about that. We should, I mean. So . . . if you, uh. Feel bad, about what you and I did, or uncomfortable, or — or even just unsure — you should let me know. And we should try to figure out what went wrong, or — whatever you need, so you don’t, uh. Feel bad. And so we don’t — or I don’t — do anything to make you feel that way again.”

Cas squints.

“What?”

Dean returns a vaguely helpless look.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes,” Cas says, frowning. “And we didn’t do anything wrong. I feel very good about what we did.”

Relief floods Dean’s face.

“Oh. Oh, good.” He takes a deep breath, slumping in his chair. “Christ, you had me worried.”

Cas distinctly recalls helplessly patting Dean’s back and repeatedly saying “Yes, good, this is good, Dean, very good,” or some variation thereof shortly before the coming happened, but then, Dean apparently lies about portraits and dead horses with seemingly minimal provocation, so perhaps he worries other people are the same.

“You shouldn’t be. You already told me to tell you if I wasn’t enjoying something, or if there was a problem. I would have.”

“Right, but — sometimes, if you’re not sure what the problem is, it’s hard to talk about, so . . . I just wanted to make sure.”

Cas nods.

“I appreciate it, but — no. There’s no problem.”

Dean nods, and then he makes a face.

“Okay. Okay, but — it kinda — you seem frustrated? Like maybe there is a problem? Even if it wasn’t that?”

Cas suppresses a sigh.

He _is,_ but—

“I . . . think I might want to ask you something,” he admits. “And it’s very distracting. But I don’t know. It doesn’t seem . . .”

He trails off, not sure how to put it.

“You can ask me anything,” Dean says quickly. “Remember? I could say no, but it’s always okay to ask. Always.”

Cas nods.

“Even if it’s something — strange?”

Dean frowns slightly.

“What makes you think it’s strange?”

Cas hesitates.

“Last time,” he eventually says, eyes falling to his chicken. “You talked about — using my slick.”

“Oh. Yeah?”

“You would touch me, where I was slicking.”

A brief pause.

“Uh. Yes. I would.”

“But it would be to — to wet your fingers. And then you would stop touching me.”

“Uh.”

“But — what if you didn’t?”

Cas looks up, but Dean is just staring at him from the other side of the table, eyes wide.

He shrugs, embarrassed.

“What if — would you be comfortable touching me there? Not just to use my slick, but — more?”

Dean twitches, and then he swallows, and then he coughs.

“Y-yeah. Sure, of course. I would . . . I would love to do that, Cas,” he adds, a little hoarse, and Cas nods, looking away again.

“Only if you’re comfortable,” he repeats, still worried. “It’s just — my last heat, I — I would touch it. The whole time, while I touched my penis, I’d stroke myself there, too, and it — it was very pleasurable. It made the, um, the orgasm feel better than without it. Will you do that?”

When he glances back up, though, Dean’s jaw has gone tight, arms suddenly crossed in front of him, his shoulders tense.

Dismay fills him.

“I would be very happy to do that,” Dean agrees, a little woodenly, and Cas deflates, an unpleasant heat spreading up his neck.

“You don’t have to. I apologize, I suspected it was an odd thing to ask f—"

Dean winces, arms abruptly uncrossing as he leans forward, reaching for Cas’s hand. Cas quiets, startled.

“No, no, Cas. It’s not, trust me. Just — we, uh. We’re eating dinner. And you probably wanna finish eating dinner. But you’re saying some things that make me not really interested in food?”

Cas’s chest goes unpleasantly tight.

“They disgust you?”

The hand in his tightens, Dean’s grip almost painful.

“No! No, I — Cas, it’s the _opposite_.”

“The opposite?” he echoes, and Dean snorts.

“Yeah, buddy, ‘cause instead of eating what’s on my plate, I kinda wanna throw you on the bed, roll you over, and eat _you._ ”

Cas screws up his face, canting his head, and after a beat of unpleasant consideration, decides he’s probably not understanding something correctly.

Dean’s head abruptly drops into his free hand.

“It’s a figure of speech, Cas,” he mutters, before Cas can ask, and Cas immediately relaxes.

For the most part, he likes Dean’s peculiar form of insanity, even if it can make things difficult, but he may have to draw the line at cannibalism, particularly if his is the body involved.

“Ah. For what?”

“For me licking inside you.”

Cas furrows his brow, and after a moment, instinctively touches his mouth.

“Like when we kiss?”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“Uh, kinda. Except — I’d be doing it to your, uh, your — posterior, or whatever you call it. Instead of just touching you.”

Naturally, Cas’s first instinct is to picture it, to picture Dean — throwing him on the bed, as he said, turning Cas over, and then—

He shifts, crossing his ankles, face suddenly hot for a different reason.

“Oh. That . . . I didn’t know . . . is that . . . why, um, why would you do that?”

“Uh, to make you feel good, hopefully? Which’ll make me feel good, which — that, uh. That _is_ what it’s all about.”

“Ah.” Cas nods, rubbing the back of his neck. “Still. That seems — risky.”

“Not — not really. If you didn’t like it, then you’d just — you know. Tell me to stop.”

Cas squints.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Your risk. Even if you want me to feel good, you’d still be . . .”

Dean raises a brow.

“Still be what? I think it’s mostly upside, for me.”

Cas doesn’t see _how_ it would mostly be ‘upside’ for Dean, who wouldn’t even be having his penis touched, would have to just — lie down behind Cas? Kneel? Cas doesn’t even know — and put his mouth in places Cas is absolutely confident mouths aren’t supposed to go.

And before his heat, he would have refused outright, but _now —_ if he thinks of the way Dean kisses him, licks inside his mouth, hot and wet and uniquely _Dean,_ and tries to imagine how Dean’s tongue would feel, brushing along Cas the way his fingers did in heat, it’s — it’s really—

It’s _bizarre._

Cas feels sort of tense and curious, anyway.

“And you’d — inside? You’d lick _inside_?”

Dean blinks.

“Yeah? Didn’t you . . . didn’t you touch yourself inside?”

Cas quickly shakes his head.

“No. It’s — that seems like it would be difficult. It doesn’t, um. It doesn’t open without force. Not like a mouth.”

Dean makes a face like someone just fed him a large forkful of cabbage.

“Could you not — force isn’t really a good word. Maybe go with — stimulus? But anyway, it, uh. It shouldn’t be difficult. Not if you do it right. If you’re — you know, turned on, getting my tongue in you shouldn’t be a problem.”

Cas instinctively looks at his mouth, fascinated.

“But why would you do it?”

Dean licks his lips, and Cas watches the way his tongue quickly sweeps along them, leaving them shiny.

“Like I said, Cas. To make you feel good.”

Cas nods slowly, finally meeting his eyes again.

“And . . . you think that will feel good.”

Dean smiles, though his eyes flick between Cas’s, intent.

“Yeah. I do.”

Cas nods again.

“Alright. We can — let’s try it.”

“Okay. Sounds good to me.” Dean clears his throat. “About the first thing you said, though?”

“What thing?” Cas asks, picking his fork back up.

“About it being a strange thing to ask. To be touched like that.”

“Oh.” He hesitates, setting it right back down. “Isn’t it?”

Of course, Dean just offered to effectively lick Cas’s rear, so perhaps he’s not the best judge.

Dean quickly shakes his head.

“Nope. The truth is, Cas — nothing’s really _strange_ to ask, exactly. Not everybody enjoys the same things, so whatever you ask your partner, they might totally say no, but — it’s nothing wrong with what you want. Like, in general, it — it’s not really a problem unless what you want is going to hurt you or somebody else, and not just in the temporary, fun way, but in the longterm.”

Cas squints.

“There’s a kind of hurt that’s _fun_?”

“Uh. For some people? Like — hey, remember how we talked about sexy torture?”

“Being licked or bathed doesn’t hurt, though.”

“Yeah, but — sometimes it’s not just licking and touching. Sometimes, people like . . . uh. Maybe — having somebody’s hand on their throat, cutting off their air a little. Or — they like the part where they get chained or tied to something, so they can’t move, and it hurts a little if they try. There’s other stuff, but — the point is, it _hurts,_ but if you don’t take it too far, you’re fine right after. And as long as it’s what you want — as long as at the end of the day, you just feel good about it — it’s okay. It’s definitely normal. So . . . trust me, whatever you want to ask for — I’m never gonna make you feel weird about it, even if it’s not something I’m okay doing.”

Cas frowns at him, considering. It’s a lot to process.

“I get breathless, when we do these things together,” he finally says. “I don’t think I’d like having my air cut off.”

Dean looks startled, and then he laughs.

“I didn’t mean _you_ had to decide whether you were interested in that kind of thing or not, but — yeah. That’s fair, Cas. I, uh. I’m not sure I’d like doing that to you. I’d be kinda afraid I’d hurt you for real.”

Cas nods. He would be, too; it sounds potentially dangerous. And if he’s being honest — he _likes_ that feeling he gets with Dean, of having absolute confidence that, the possibility of a final ‘goodbye’ aside, Dean is never going to hurt him — in any way. It’s almost _thrilling_ , in some ways, every time Cas finds something new to worry about, only to have Dean put his mind at rest.

It’s not quite like anything Cas has ever experienced, before, and he treasures it.

“And . . . I don’t want to be tied up. I didn’t like being tied to the bed during my heats, and when I first went with you, I was afraid that would happen. Or that you’d put me in the dungeon when you weren’t bedding me.”

Dean’s smile slips.

“But that’s good to know,” Cas adds. “Thank you for telling me about those things, Dean.”

If wanting to be tied up or what sounds like being _strangled_ a little isn’t weird, then Cas feels a lot better about wanting to have his posterior touched. He’s still not sure it isn’t stranger than those other things, but it doesn’t hurt, in a fun way or otherwise, and as far as he understands Dean, that means it fits the criteria for normalcy.

Unfortunately, another problem has emerged, because Dean — Dean is looking increasingly troubled.

“I . . . were you that afraid? When you came with me?”

Cas shrugs.

“Anna and I had wondered about it for years. What you’d do with her. Obviously, we didn’t think it would be anything good.” It feels like so long ago that they had those quiet, uneasy talks, humor a bleak effort as they contemplated what the future held.

Even Dean, waiting outside the house that surreal grey morning—

It almost feels like someone else’s life, at this point.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says quietly, not looking at him. “I, uh. I never — one of the reasons I was so sure you were up to something is that you — you didn’t ever seem afraid. Whatever happened, it was like — you just kept moving forward like you had a plan, when I’d thought — I’d _expected_ you to be afraid. I expected you to be — to be falling apart. ‘Cause most people would be. I think I would be. But you weren’t.”

“It felt like it, sometimes,” Cas admits. “But no. It wore on me, certainly, but — there’s never been anything else for me to do but keep moving forward, Dean. And honestly — if you’d asked, I wouldn’t have said so, but . . .” He glances down. “I think there was a part of me that was still waiting for something good. Or at least better.”

Dean looks pained, when Cas meets his eyes again.

“I didn’t understand anything. I didn’t understand you. You — you’re so much, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it, and — God. I’m so sorry, Cas.”

Cas shakes his head, sighing.

“Dean. You’ve apologized enough. Besides.” Cas slides his foot forward, tucks it alongside Dean’s, ankles brushing. “You’ve given me more good than I could have imagined.”

“But I _haven’t_. I still—"

“Anna running away was the best thing that ever could have happened to me.”

Dean goes still, staring at him.

Cas simply stares back, hoping Dean understands.

Dean swallows.

“I — well, you _were_ in New Eden, so . . .”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“Dean.”

Dean nods.

“Right. Sorry.”

Cas lifts his foot, giving Dean’s calf a reassuring rub, and Dean stiffens.

“Oh, uh — h-hey.”

Cas cocks his head.

“You should eat.”

Dean snorts.

“Yeah, I really want to,” he mutters under his breath, and then shoots Cas a small smile and picks up his fork.

Cas smiles back at him for a moment, a full, familiar warmth in his chest, and with one last, fond rub of Dean’s calf, does the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> References to sex work: A man on a boat calls out to Dean, interested in managing him as a sex worker (or companion, in this world). Cas is angry and discourages the man, then tells Dean that Anna has said people like the man are horrible. Dean indicates that the sex industry is regulated in this kingdom and that, assuming the man is legitimate, he might be obnoxious, but is probably not actually horrible. To clarify, the characters are separate from the author, and this author's general feeling is that work is work, and in _any_ industry, what is necessary to make it acceptable is that all exchanges of goods/services should be informed, fully consensual, and with appropriate protections in place for provider and consumer both.
> 
> Discussions of kink: Cas worries the sex act he wants to ask Dean to perform is strange; Dean revisits that comment and explains to him that even if a partner is not interested in the same things you are, as a general rule, it is not strange or abnormal to want what you want. He goes on to say that as long as something doesn’t hurt you in the longterm, beyond the ‘temporary, fun way’, it’s okay. To reiterate, this is not a comprehensive talk; the takeaway should be that you don’t need to feel ashamed of your kinks and that it’s okay to act on them, so long as everything is consensual and no real harm is done to anyone involved, but I recognize that this is a complicated subject, and that there may be some argument as to how one defines ‘real harm’ when it comes to consenting individuals and their feelings/perception about a thing. It isn’t my intent to fully explore or comment on that topic; Cas is only just figuring out that it’s okay to have/ask for orgasms, and Dean doesn’t live in a society that officially discusses these things, even if the culture he experiences in the capital allows him to mostly understand and be aware of them, and this conversation is strictly for the benefit of Cas’s basic sexual education and for openness between them as they establish a sexual relationship. However, if you feel it wasn’t handled well or there were some red flags in there, always feel comfortable letting me know so I can take a second look.
> 
> Mentions of breathplay/restraints/masochism: Dean uses these as examples when he’s explaining what he means by the ‘temporary, fun’ kind of hurt to Cas; it is established that Dean and Cas are not interested in doing these things (Cas finds he’s already breathless when he and Dean are intimate with one another, and he has negative associations with being restrained), but their conclusions are specific to these two characters in this particular universe and at this time and place for them; i.e. if you have these kinks or headcanon these kinks for Dean and Cas, this is absolutely not a broader commentary on any of that, and please do rock on. Additionally, Cas’s justification for not wanting to be restrained is not meant to suggest that’s a rule for how people would feel about these things; experiencing something traumatic can make you want to avoid things that emulate that trauma, but it can also cause you to seek out similar experiences in a safe, controlled setting and enjoy it. There are countless ways to respond to and/or process trauma, and everyone is going to be different (and also I am not an expert on any of it, either way).


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: a lot of sex, like A Lot (*** at the beginning and end of the scenes and summaries in the notes, but it will be a short chapter for people who skip those, so I apologize), the boys in nightgowns, author nod to the terrible hats of All Things In Succession, non-explicit references to hypothetical animal death, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> note: Dean makes a comment about them fitting well; there are many ways for people to fit together, and even if these two like the one that’s referenced, I’m definitely not trying to say it’s superior to any of the others, or is even a significant indicator that they do fit. (Mostly Dean is just like, a really big sap??? sorry about it)

They’re quiet, for the remainder of the meal, and unfortunately, it leaves Cas time to think.

More specifically, it leaves Cas time to think about what comes _after,_ about the puzzling conundrum of Dean’s mouth over him, of his — his _tongue,_ trying to fit inside. It’s intriguing and unsettling both, and by the time they’ve finished stiltedly eating dinner, Cas’s penis is partially hard in his trousers, a small but unmistakable amount of slick gathering at his rear, and his stomach is so tight with nerves he has to push his plate away before he’s finished, mumbling something about his earlier lunch.

Dean swallows an overlarge bite of his roll, coughing a little, and after a moment, sets aside his own dinner.

“Yeah, actually, I — I’ve kinda been rounding out, you know, all the, uh, the paperwork and stuff. I should probably be done.”

“Oh.” Cas blinks, looking him over, though Dean’s mostly covered by the table and he’s wearing one of Cas’s loose nightgowns, besides. He remembers well from earlier, though. “I, um. I think your body’s still perfect, if it helps.”

Color tinges Dean’s cheeks, those pretty, pretty eyes blinking back at Cas, rapid and sweet.

“Oh. Uh. Thank you. You, um. You, too. Like, a lot. Really . . . really perfect. Arms, too.”

“Arms?”

“Your arms, I mean. They — they looked really good today. I liked watching you . . . carry stuff.”

“Oh. But — they’re bigger, than they were. Because of the work. I’ve worried about it.”

Dean lifts his brows.

“You shouldn’t. Definitely shouldn’t. It looks good on you. Looked good before, too, but — yeah.” He clears his throat. “They, uh, they felt pretty good, too. Earlier. When you put ‘em around me.”

Cas’s heart thuds rather furiously.

“That’s good. I always — I like how yours feel. When you hold me. I hope mine feel as good.”

Dean quickly nods.

“The best.”

Cas wonders what he means by that, if he’s really trying to say _Cas_ holding him feels better than anybody else who’s done the same, but he supposes it doesn’t matter.

They like holding each other, and Dean doesn’t want to give anyone else orgasms, and Dean also spent the entire day doing manual labor just to spend time with Cas, and — and he’s _here._

Things have turned out remarkably well, for Cas.

He doesn’t know why he’d bother nitpicking.

***

“So . . . do you still wanna . . .”

“Yes,” Cas says quickly. “We’ll stop if I don’t, or if you don’t,” he adds, looking to Dean for confirmation, and Dean grins.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Cas nods, and with slightly trembling legs, pushes his chair back and stands.

“I — how should I be? To provide you access?”

Dean snorts at that, for some reason, but stands as well, rubbing his neck.

“Uh, maybe — lie on your stomach? Or will it weird you out, if you can’t see me?”

Cas hesitates, torn. On the one hand, a part of him responds to the logic in that, to the idea of being able to know what’s going on, to try and anticipate Dean’s movements before they happen.

But on the _other_ . . .

“When you kneel behind me, to wash my hair — I like that feeling. I can sense you there, but — I don’t know what you’re going to do.” He swallows. “I know you’re going to wash my hair, just as I know what you’ll do now, and that’s important, but I also . . . it’s still a surprise. I enjoy that.”

Besides, he thinks it will be very embarrassing to have to look at Dean while he puts his mouth there.

“Yeah?” Dean is just staring at him, intent. “That makes sense. That’s, uh. That’s good to know. Then . . . stomach it is.”

Cas nods, and after a beat, moves to the bed.

He pauses at the edge, then quickly leans down, gathering the skirt of his nightgown up so he can take off his drawers.

“Wait,” Dean says quickly, stepping toward him. “Is it — is it okay if I do it?”

It takes Cas a moment to understand.

When he does, his face warms.

“Alright.” He lets the material fall, unsure how much of it Dean is asking to do, and Dean licks his lips, slowly closing the distance between them.

He stops in front of Cas for a long moment, simply looking at him.

And then, carefully, he lowers himself to his knees.

Cas’s stomach pulls tight, and he stares down at Dean, a little shocked by his own reaction.

“Still okay?” Dean whispers, looking back at him, eyes framed by his lashes, and Cas nods, unable to find his voice.

Dean’s hands lift, fingers finding the hem of the nightgown and closing around it on either side of Cas’s calves.

And then, slowly, he begins pushing it up, the heel of his palms brushing against Cas’s skin every few inches, leaving traces of heat in their wake, and after a small, stunning eternity, Dean is gathering it over Cas’s yellow cotton drawers, over the telltale swell in front, holding it aloft for several seconds as he just — _looks._

“Dean,” Cas whispers, not even sure what he means by it, and Dean’s gaze flicks back to his.

“Are you looking forward to it, Cas?” he asks, warm hands still holding the skirt of Cas’s nightgown up, Cas’s tented drawers an obscene sort of fixture in front of him, one which Dean seems utterly unconcerned by. “What I said I was going to do?”

Cas swallows, nods, and Dean takes a deep breath.

“Good. I’m going to take off your drawers, now, alright?”

“Alright.” Dean’s thumb brushes over the waist of them briefly, and Cas takes a breath of his own. “Then what? What do I do?”

Dean smiles up at him.

“Do you want to take your nightgown off?”

Cas immediately shakes his head.

“No. Not if I’m on my stomach.”

Dean looks at him for a moment, then nods.

“Okay. I’m gonna need to put it up to your hips though. Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

“Awesome. Then — once you’re lying down, I’m gonna put one of the pillows under your stomach, okay? I can reach you better, that way.”

Part of Cas wants to protest, because a pillow underneath his stomach sounds like his posterior pushing up and out in a way both awkward and unbecoming, but then again, Dean intends to put his _face_ to it.

Cas thinks his knees might be trembling slightly, but fortunately, Dean hasn’t said anything.

“Alright.”

Dean smiles again.

And then his grip on Cas’s nightgown shifts, thumbs tucking over the waistband of his drawers, tugging at the elastic — and then, with an agonizing sort of care, he begins pulling it down.

Cas instinctively looks away, looks toward the ceiling, unable to bear the reveal. He should tell Dean to close his eyes, but for some reason, the words stick.

“This part of you is gorgeous, too, for the record,” Dean murmurs, soft and unexpected, and Cas makes the mistake of looking down again just as the waistband scrapes along his penis.

He watches, horrified, as it twitches between them, Dean’s eyes inches away and trained directly on it.

Dean’s hands still.

“Sorry,” he blurts out, and Dean shakes his head, resuming his task, Cas’s nightgown tumbling back down the path as Dean pulls his drawers along, thankfully covering the offending part.

“Don’t be. Like I said. Gorgeous.”

Penises are _not_ gorgeous, whether they belong to Cas or not, but before Cas can muster a protest, Dean is looking back up at him, dark-eyed and enticing, lips quirked.

“Lift your foot?” he asks, and Cas obediently lifts one, letting Dean pull one leg of his drawers free of it. The nightgown falls to rest, with that, and Cas knows a fleeting sense of relief, though it won’t last.

At least his penis should be hidden underneath him, next time.

Dean idles on his knees a moment longer, even once the drawers are gently laid aside, and Cas tries not to squirm beneath his gaze.

“There’s something else I want to show you, next time,” he says eventually, looking thoughtful. “But we can talk about it then.”

Cas nods, uninterested in asking for more information, for once.

His thoughts are full enough with what’s about to transpire as it is.

“Should I get on the bed, now?”

“Yeah.”

Dean waits another moment, just looking up at him, and then he swiftly rises, nearly bumping into Cas as he goes.

They look at each other for a moment.

“Before you do that,” Dean whispers, and then he ducks his chin and kisses Cas.

It is _amazing_ , how much that small, relatively chaste contact both soothes and intensifies all the other feelings within.

“Thank you,” Cas mumbles when they break apart, briefly resting his head on Dean’s shoulder. “That helps.”

Cas can feel the echoes of Dean’s pulse, like this, faint but fast, and that helps, too.

“We don’t have to,” Dean whispers, a hand coming up to cup the back of Cas’s head, gentle. “I can do it the way you did it. You can tell me exactly how you want it.”

Cas shakes his head.

“No. Let’s — let’s try.”

He steps back, answering the worry in Dean’s eyes with a small smile.

And then he turns, carefully crawling onto the bed, and when his head is near the pillows, he lowers himself onto his stomach.

“Like this?”

There’s a pause behind him, and then he hears Dean inhale.

“Yeah. Like that. Hand me a pillow?”

Cas plucks one off to the side, reserving the one right in front of him to prop his chin on, and clumsily tosses it back. He hears Dean catch it, and then the bed dips, Dean climbing on.

“Can you — push up on your knees a little?”

Cas obliges, bracing himself on his elbows and lifting, and after a moment, the pillow slides beneath him, butting up against his stomach and hips.

“Okay, now relax, and tell me if it’s comfy.”

Cas relaxes, and though it feels weird, to be elevated in this fashion, he nods.

“I think so.”

“Good. Tell me if that changes, okay?”

“Okay,” Cas agrees, bracing himself for what happens next, and he was right, earlier.

Turned away like this, Dean an unmistakable presence behind him, touches bound to begin at any moment—

It’s thrilling.

He feels Dean’s palms settle on his calves, just below his knees, brushing the rumpled hem of his nightgown.

“May I?”

Cas takes a deep breath, then nods.

“Yes.”

Dean starts moving the nightgown up, palms ghosting over the backs of Cas’s legs, and Cas tucks his chin into the pillow a little tighter, bracing himself.

There’s a hot sort of anticipation in Cas, just like when they do the other things, but still — it’s different, somehow. He’s nervous his nightgown will ride up too far, with him angled like this, and if he _does_ like it the way he likes the other things, he’s afraid he won’t have the presence of mind to keep track of such a thing, but the bedroom air is cool against the bare skin of his rear, now, and as embarrassed as he is to be exposed like this, he can already feel the beginnings of the wetness he’s come to associate with this kind of anticipation.

On which note—

“I should warn you,” he mumbles, turning his head back slightly, worried. “I’m — I slick, when you do things to me.”

“Uh.” Dean pauses, tucking Cas’s nightgown in around his hips a little before letting go. “Yeah. I — I can tell.”

“It does have a very strong smell,” Cas acknowledges, embarrassed, but forces himself to press on. “But — if you really intend to — to put your mouth there,” he makes himself say, “You’re going to — taste it.”

Dean is silent for a moment.

“Okay,” he agrees, voice strange, and Cas frowns.

“When I say I slick,” he clarifies. “I mean — there may be a _lot_ of it, Dean. If it’s like what you’ve done before, it’s going to drip down my thighs. I — I wouldn’t surprised if it ended with it in your mouth. And—" he hesitates, wincing. “On your face. If you do this, Dean, you — you may end up covered in my slick.”

Another long pause.

“Jesus _Christ,_ ” he hears Dean swear, and Cas nods, starting to turn.

“You see, it isn’t a—"

Dean’s hands suddenly grip the back of his thighs, holding him in place, and the reassurance dies.

Cas swallows.

It never ceases to amaze him, how all these small, theoretically inconsequential touches can send a wealth of sensation and _feeling_ crashing through him.

“Cas. Seriously. Do you not want me to do this?”

“I . . . I’m worried it will be unpleasant for you. And I’m embarrassed,” he manages, and Dean’s grip gentles, thumbs stroking lightly.

Cas didn’t know the backs of his thighs could _be_ this sensitive _,_ but it’s all he can do not to squirm beneath the touch.

“Don’t be,” Dean says. “You look — there aren’t words, Cas. You’re gonna get real tired of me calling you gorgeous, trust me.”

“I won’t ever get tired of that.”

“Okay, well, then you’re gorgeous. And there are few things I’ve ever wanted in my life more than I want to taste you and end up covered in your slick right now. Got it?”

Cas closes his eyes, a strange thrill curling in his stomach.

He’s pretty sure he’s slicking visibly, at this point, even though Dean has hardly touched him.

“Oh. Alright. Then . . . as you will.”

He waits, expecting some strange sort of touch or sensation, but instead Dean’s hands leave his thighs, the bed shifting around him, and then there’s warmth at his back and Dean’s mouth is on his neck, frustratingly soft and fleeting as it moves from his ear to his shoulder to the top of his spine.

He can tell Dean must be supporting himself on his hands, and a part of him is frustrated by all the barely-there-contact.

“Dean.”

“Yeah, Cas. Gimme a second.”

He waits, shivering as Dean’s lips leave his skin, and then the warmth is gone, Dean settling back, and a moment later his hands are on Cas’s shoulder blades, warm through the thin cotton nightgown.

They move down his back slowly, thumbs teasing at his spine, fingers curling around his waist where he narrows, brushing his hips as they reach the bunched hem, and then—

Cas sucks in a breath as they keep going, Dean’s calloused palms smoothing over the skin of his rear, and he knew that might happen, knows Dean intends to put his _tongue_ in much stranger places, but the feel of Dean’s hands, stroking over this part of him, gradually firming, nearly massaging the flesh—

“ _Dean_ —" he chokes out, and Dean’s touch lightens, sweeping back up.

And then the tip of one thumb brushes the divot at the base of his spine, feather-light as it trails down, tracing the dip between his buttocks, and when Cas shudders as it concludes its shallow descent, it swiftly moves back up and starts anew.

This time, Dean presses down, dragging slowly, and Cas sucks in a breath when it slides _lower,_ never breaking contact, and suddenly it slips, coming to a firm stop right over his—

He isn’t quite sure how to describe the noise he makes at that touch, the flat of Dean’s thumb pressing gently at his opening, entirely different than when Cas had brushed along it himself.

“Cas?”

“Yes,” is all Cas can say.

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

And then Dean’s thumb _moves,_ a slow, agonizing circle, path made easy by the pool of slick there, and Cas inhales sharply, unable to keep from twitching back against it.

“Still okay?” Dean whispers, and Cas nods. “Cas?”

“Yes,” he forces himself to say, clutching the pillow beneath his head for dear life. “It — it’s okay.”

“I’d really like to taste you now.”

Cas takes a deep, shuddering breath.

He still doesn’t understand why Dean would like to do such a thing, but the current touches are overwhelming, the feeling at Dean’s hands vastly different than at his own, and he’s grateful for the chance of reprieve before the tight, jittery feeling beneath his skin causes him to do anything untoward.

“Okay.”

Dean’s thumb doesn’t leave, though; instead, it slides over, back onto the skin of one cheek, slick cooling as the air hits it, and then his free hand settles on the other side, gently pulling at the flesh, parting him, and—

Cas jerks as Dean’s tongue presses against him, warm and wet and somehow so, so much worse than that innocent, barely-there touch of his thumb.

Dean hums against him, a hum Cas can feel in unexpected, deeply intimate places, and he can’t fight the moan that claws its way out of his throat as Dean’s tongue drags hotly over his opening.

Dean pauses, pulling back while Cas pants against his pillow.

“For the record,” he says, sounding breathless. “You taste fucking amazing.”

Cas has no idea what to say to that, but he doesn’t bother trying, because then Dean is spreading him a little wider and licking across him a little harder and it is utterly indescribable, and even though he’s neither sad or upset in any way, Cas thinks he might cry.

He tries to hold still, tries to control the embarrassing amount of wetness he can feel, afraid Dean will stop if Cas is too much of a mess, but it’s so hard to focus when Dean’s tongue is laving across him, lapping at him like he doesn’t _care_ if Cas’s slick gets in his mouth, like Cas really does taste good, and when Dean groans, the way he sometimes does when they kiss, a deep, rough sound that Cas feels right through to his core, a sound that has him fighting not to squirm, has him feeling empty and aching and—

Dean pulls back, and Cas can’t help a rough cry of distress.

“Gonna put my tongue inside you, now,” Dean tells him, hoarse, and Cas nods frantically. He’s never had anything inside of himself, and he never thought he would want anything there, thought it would be something he had to endure, when Dean first came to get him, thought it would be something he could give, when he realized he loved Dean, but now—

Everything Dean does to him feels _good,_ feels like a reward for things Cas hasn’t even done, and he believes, with every fiber of his being, that this will, too.

“Cas.”

“Yes,” Cas says, and then Dean’s moving, breath hot against Cas’s opening, tongue pressing back against the slippery furl, but this time he _pushes,_ and Cas feels himself open, feels the wet muscle slip inside, delving into him, and Cas thought there would be more resistance, more discomfort, more _something,_ but there’s just Dean’s tongue and a senseless pleasure as it slides into him and _curls._

“Oh,” Cas chokes out, burying his face in the pillow and arching, helplessly pushing up. Dean squeezes him in response, and that’s incredible, too, and then he’s moving, tongue spearing into Cas, licking hungrily, twisting against his walls and dragging out before thrusting back in again while Cas cries out into his pillow.

Dean withdraws after some too-short eternity of this torture, and Cas turns his face with a gasp, confused and distraught, though he understands Dean can’t be expected to do such a thing for any length of time.

“You taste incredible,” Dean pants, before Cas can find the words to ask. “Have you ever tasted yourself?”

Cas twists, staring, bewildered.

“No? Why would I . . .?” he trails off, caught on the sight of Dean’s mouth, lips and chin shiny, even the tip of his nose gleaming with slick. Embarrassment floods him, but then there’s a gentle swipe along the inside of his thigh where he’s leaking down, body shameless, and Dean leans forward, holding out his wet, glistening fingers.

Cas swallows.

“Incredible,” Dean repeats, and speechless, Cas opens his mouth.

Dean tucks his fingers inside, pressing down on Cas’s tongue, and Cas instinctively closes around the digits, sucking them clean.

He tastes — almost sweet, he’s surprised to find. There’s a distinct sort of flavor there, one he can’t name, but it’s not bad, and though he wouldn’t describe it as _incredible,_ he takes heart in the fact that it’s not foul.

That Dean really might not mind putting his tongue there, licking inside of him in this wonderful way he’s thought up.

“Good?”

Cas nods slightly, and Dean draws his fingers out, tips rough as they drag across Cas’s tongue, and Cas has the strange thought that he likes that, too, likes the feel of Dean’s fingers in his mouth, caught between his lips.

“It’s alright,” he manages, when Dean’s finally pulled them free. “I — I liked your fingers in my mouth.”

Dean’s eyes widen slightly.

“Oh.”

“Will you do it some more? Your tongue, I mean,” Cas adds. Dean can’t reach this far when his face is buried between Cas’s buttocks, and Cas thinks asking to suck on someone’s fingers must be an _unusual_ request, even if Dean would say it was still normal.

Dean licks his lips — lips covered in _Cas’s_ slick, and Cas isn’t sure how the idea can be more appealing than gross, but it is — and then ducks back down.

“Whatever you want, Cas,” he says, and then he spreads him again and thrusts his tongue inside and Cas collapses back into his pillow with a moan, struggling not to shove back into it.

How can something feel so _good_?

Dean is surely the most dexterous man in Winchester, because he doesn’t falter, just massages Cas’s cheeks with his hands, holding him open for his tongue, and diligently pushes in, licking against his walls and pressing inside him; there’s sharp jabs and soft, slow dips, and Cas’s heart is hammering and his legs are shaking and his penis is painfully hard against the pillow, and when Dean’s lips close over him and he _sucks,_ some truly obscene slurping sound vibrating between them, Cas cries out.

“More,” he snaps, not even sure what he expects Dean to do, just sure that it’s not enough, that he _needs_ more, needs whatever Dean can think to give him.

Dean pulls back, breaths harsh.

“Okay,” he pants. “Okay, I — my finger, can I put my finger inside you?”

Cas freezes, unsure. In theory, his body is equipped to accommodate Dean’s _penis_ , so a finger should be nothing, but Cas never expected the event to be _comfortable._

“Will it hurt?”

“No — God, no, Cas. I’ll never hurt you. Remember — it’s supposed to feel good, and if it doesn’t, I stop.”

Cas takes a deep, shaky breath, a little of his urgency settling in the face of this new unknown.

“Alright,” he agrees, because—

Because he trusts Dean, and everything they’ve done _has_ felt good, and since Cas doesn’t even see what other motive Dean would have for this other than Cas’s pleasure, that means this, too, should feel good.

Still. He rests his forehead against the pillow and breathes in deep, bracing himself.

He jerks when he feels Dean’s tongue return to his opening, but it doesn’t press inside this time, just laps generously at the edges, the muscle there twitching beneath the attention. Soon after, Cas feels the tip of Dean’s finger joining it, sliding against the rim of his opening, and he tries not to hold his breath, a sliver of fear working its way through him.

He clutches the sheet tightly, unsure what to expect as he feels it brush over him, Dean’s tongue still working sweetly around it.

And then the tip is slowly pushing inside, the digit feeling thicker than Cas expected, and even though Cas is prepared, is waiting for at least a little bit of pain, some kind of unpleasantness at the intrusion—

Dean’s finger slides in easily, callouses gliding smoothly against Cas’s slick walls, and Cas cries out for an entirely different reason than he expected.

Dean pulls back, though he leaves his finger inside, Cas pulsing around it.

“Okay?”

Cas swallows.

“Yes. Yes, it — it’s okay.”

“Good. I’m gonna move it, alright? Kind of like tongue.”

Cas nods, though he’s not sure Dean can see him.

“I liked that,” he whispers. “When you did it with your tongue.”

“Good,” Dean says again, and Cas can hear the smile in his voice.

And then his left hand is gripping Cas’s cheek a little harder, and heat returns to Cas’s entrance, Dean’s mouth closing warmly over it, finger pushing in a little further, and when Dean licks across him just as he pulls his finger out, something terrible and wonderful happens in the pit of Cas’s stomach.

Dean’s finger thrusts back inside again, tongue teasing at the rim, and Cas jerks.

And then, on the next stroke, Dean curling the digit as he pulls it out, sending shivers wracking through Cas’s body — when he pushes it back inside, his tongue moves with it.

There’s the barest of stings, but Cas almost doesn’t notice it, utterly devastated by the way that feels, Dean’s tongue and finger tangling inside him, and he certainly doesn’t care, can’t even stop himself from pushing up into it, wanting the sensation deeper.

Dean moans, the sound seeming to pulse through Cas’s entire body, and Cas arches, desperation suddenly building and hot fast within.

“Dean,” he cries out, and Dean is withdrawing, only to slide right back inside, finger pushing _deep,_ stroking against Cas’s walls, and Cas shakes, the pleasure nearly unbearable as Dean does it again, once, twice, three times more, Cas’s opening clenching involuntarily around this marvelous intrusion, and to Cas’s utter shock—

It’s like he _bursts_ _,_ orgasm crashing through him, wholly unexpected and blinding in its pleasure, and there’s no suppressing the shout that punches out of him when it happens.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Dean swears, but it barely registers, lights in Cas’s vision as he twists and shudders and bucks back against everything he can reach. “Christ, Cas, I can feel that—"

Cas groans, burying his face in the pillow, muscles shaking, but Dean keeps thrusting his finger into him, anyway, and Cas can’t decide if he loves it or hates it, something like a sob rising in his throat as he tightens around it.

It could be seconds or hours before Dean suddenly pulls his finger out, and then there’s his tongue again, lapping warmly at the outside of him, strangely soothing, and Cas twitches his hips up for more, body feeling vaguely destroyed in a way Cas can’t quite complain about.

If he were feeling any pain, he would call this a severe variety of sexy torture, indeed.

Eventually, Dean pulls away, and then he’s crawling up and stretching out beside Cas, peering in at him.

“You okay?”

Cas blinks back, then nods.

“I think so,” he whispers.

“Did it feel good?”

Cas nods again.

“Yes.”

Dean smiles.

“Can I hold you?”

Immediately, Cas wriggles off the pillow, rolling into Dean’s waiting arms, too wrung-out to care about the fact that his nightgown is still hiked up and his front is a little sticky and Dean clearly hasn’t had an orgasm.

Dean doesn’t complain, though, simply tucks his face into Cas’s neck and breathes in deep, and that — that is wonderful, too.

“You did great,” he mumbles, rubbing his nose along Cas’s throat, and Cas huffs, discreetly trying to bare it for more.

“All I did was lie there.”

“Mm, no. You did great,” Dean insists, and then he kisses Cas’s neck. “I liked that a lot.”

“You didn’t have an orgasm.”

“But I got to taste you. And I got to feel you have yours.”

Cas swallows.

“What do you mean?”

“From inside you,” Dean says softly, lips brushing Cas’s neck still. “You get tight. You — pulse, kind of. It felt good.”

“It did,” Cas agrees, fascinated by the description, and Dean laughs.

“You should do it to yourself sometime.”

“Oh. I suppose I could.” It sounds less appealing than having Dean do it, but then, that’s not new. “I can’t lick myself, though.”

There’s another laugh, and then Dean pulls back and kisses his mouth.

“Fair,” he whispers. “I, uh, I guess you’ll just have to keep me around to do it, then.”

_Oh_ , how Cas wishes.

Instead of saying so, though, he nudges Dean onto his back and kisses him, and when he’s satisfied for the moment, he invites Dean to rub against him until he has his orgasm, too.

It is much, much nicer than playing gin.

*** (end of scene one)

Dean’s gone by nine-forty-five, and an unusually large crowd of women in the parlor are all grinning at Cas when he reluctantly trudges back in, though Anna seems considerably less entertained.

Actually, if anything, she seems somewhat _awkward_.

Anyway, Cas volunteers to refresh the tea in order to avoid it for a while longer, and then he joins Max at the puzzle table, though she’s reading one of Billie’s books.

She lowers it briefly, brow creased in consternation, as if she’s about to speak, then appears to think better of it.

It’s all very curious, and Cas would be vastly more disturbed by it, except he had an extremely good night and he’s looking forward to going through town with Dean tomorrow and presently, he can’t be _bothered_ to be bothered.

He enjoys his tea in quiet, reflecting on the high points of the evening, and about half an hour later when most of them have dispersed and Cas himself is ready for bed, Anna asks if she can have a word.

“Of course,” he agrees, puzzled as he lingers by the settee. “What is it?”

She hesitates, then clears her throat.

“Just — I was thinking. Maybe — maybe tomorrow night, you could go to Dean’s.”

“Dean’s?” Cas blinks, much struck by this proposal, because if he heard her correctly, she’s saying— “I can — I can go to _Dean’s_?”

She nods vigorously.

“Yes. You can. You can even stay there _all night_ if you want to.”

He gapes, astounded.

“I _can_?”

“Guest curfew is to protect the people living here, not restrict their activities. You can _absolutely_ stay all night. Over there. Miles away from Mills Park while you do whatever it is you would have done here.”

Cas just stares at her, a little disbelieving, but certainly not about to protest.

“Yes. Alright. Thank you, Anna. I’ll tell Dean tomorrow.”

For some reason, his sister sighs.

“Good. You do that.”

Cas goes to sleep shortly after, pleasantly exhausted and looking forward to what the morning will bring.

“Before you two leave — I have a gift for you, your highness.”

Dean stares at the item in Anna’s hands for a long, long moment, uncomprehending as he tries to accept its existence in his world.

He’s not totally sure he wouldn’t rather it have been that dagger, about to get stuck between his ribs.

“I made it just for you,” she adds, holding it out to him more insistently, and the long, brilliantly-colored peacock feather tucked in its band quivers with what Dean can only assume is _shame_.

“Uh. Thank you?”

Anna smiles beatifcally.

“My pleasure. I appreciate everything you’ve done for my brother,” she adds kindly. “And I mean _everything._ ”

There’s some kind of weird, green and white stone affixed to the end of the feather, and Dean swears to God it looks like an _eyeball,_ just — just _staring_ at him, like it’s his fault it has to be a part of this.

“Ah. That — you know, it was nothing.”

“I’ve often thought so,” she agrees smoothly. “Anyway, I thought you could wear it on your outing today. It’s going to be sunny.”

Dean swallows, trying not to look too hard at the wide, floppy brim, lest his feelings about it show on his face.

“Wow. That — that sounds — great. Thank you. Just — it’s — it sure is something.”

She beams.

“It turned out even better than I expected,” she concurs, looking at him pointedly, and at last, Dean cannot avoid his fate.

He reaches out and takes the hat.

She claps her hands together afterward, rubbing them, almost like she’s shaking the hat off.

(Maybe Dean’s projecting.)

“Well, I have commissions to work on.” She glances toward Cas, smiling. “Enjoy yourselves.”

And with that, Anna turns and heads back into the parlor, a vaguely menacing bounce to her step.

Cas crowds in close in her absence, peering down at the hat and looking unreasonably pleased, considering the fact that part of Dean kind of thinks he needs to take the hat out back and _shoot_ it.

(And then maybe call a priest.)

“This is wonderful, Dean.” He looks back up, eyes bright. “And she didn’t even come to enforce curfew, last night. I think she’s starting to like you.”

Dean stares balefully at the peacock feather, at the quilted purple velvet and weird eyeball-stone and — jesus fucking christ, are those _tassles_? — that he’s pretty sure he’s going to have to put on his head for the majority of today, and swallows.

“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I think, uh, she’s definitely . . . changing her opinion of me.”

Cas nods enthusiastically, and then reaches for the hat.

“I’ll help you put it on,” he offers, and before Dean can make up an excuse or at least try and get himself warded against evil spirits first, Cas is lifting it towards his head and carefully setting it atop it.

He steps back with a smile — Cas is purehearted enough he’s probably immune to whatever dark energy it possesses — and tilts his head.

“It’s very interesting,” he remarks. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

Of course he hasn’t. Anyone who _has_ probably turned to fucking _stone._

(Dean doesn’t say that, though.)

“The feather brings out your eyes,” Cas adds, and Dean tries not to wince.

“Brim is — is kinda wide, for winter,” he points out, although he doesn’t kid himself that he’s leaving Mills Park without it.

“It’s velvet. It must be a winter hat.” Cas hesitates, and then he steps close again, gently tugging the enormous brim down on both sides, shading them. “And . . . it can be manipulated for, um, privacy.”

Having said that, he leans in and kisses Dean, soft and lingering, and then pulls back, looking hopeful.

Dean laughs.

“I think people will still be able to see us,” he points out, and Cas shrugs. “But yeah, okay. I can, uh. I can wear it today.”

Cas beams, and shit, unseelie hats that should be buried beneath twenty tons of dirt and rock and sealed off from human access aside, Dean thinks he’d do just about anything for that smile.

“Please do,” Cas murmurs.

And then he tugs the brim further down and kisses Dean once again.

He hasn’t told Dean yet — there’s always the possibility that Dean will say _no —_ but Cas is so excited to sleep over, it’s hard to contain himself.

He looks at Dean, the peculiar hat Anna’s made him framing his handsome face, and he feels giddy. He can’t stop thinking about what Dean said about his arms, about what Dean did to him after dinner, about what spending the night is going to be like. The first night at the inn was so long ago, Cas’s focus centered more on the bed and the breakfast and the merciful stay of bedding, but he remembers falling asleep and waking up to Dean’s scent, remembers the morning sun lighting Dean’s face as he told Cas what was going to happen.

It wasn’t bad, but tonight — tonight, he’s sure, is going to be different, in only the best of ways.

Honestly, he wishes there was something special he could do. He doesn’t know if Dean will be as excited as he is, when Cas tells him, but he’d like him to be. He’d like to do something that would put that becoming, starry look on Dean’s face, or that would make his eyes go dark and watchful, or would simply have him _reaching_ for Cas, wanting to hold him, like there’s nothing else for him to do.

(Cas thinks about Susan telling him how to drive Dean wild, and he wishes he’d asked for clarification on what that meant, because she said it like it was a good thing and while ‘wild’ is vague and intimidating, Cas aches for Dean’s focus, for his responses, and lately, he finds himself — he’s just — he’s _curious._ )

“You okay?” Dean asks him, when they’ve been walking for a while, and Cas realizes he’s been silent, mind already in tonight instead of the present, and he shakes himself.

“Yes, sorry.”

Dean steps a little closer, velvet hat brim brushing Cas’s cheek.

“You sure?”

Cas smiles at him, and after a beat, offers his arm, the way he sees the gentlemen in Sioux Falls do with their female companions.

Dean is not his female companion, but Cas has seen the look in those men’s eyes, has seen the way the girls tuck in close afterward, smiles on their faces, and his instincts tell him it’s appropriate.

“Yes. I’m happy to be with you.”

Dean looks at his proffered arm for a moment, and then he sort of smiles, curling his hand over Cas’s elbow.

“Well, this is a new one for me,” he says, somewhat cryptic, but then he steps close, pressing into Cas’s side just like the girls do, and Cas’s heart stumbles with an unpracticed sort of joy. “I, uh. I’m really happy to be with you, too. Always am.”

Dean’s brim keeps hitting him in the face as they walk, but Cas can’t even bring himself to care.

Cas can’t really bring himself to care about _anything._ Anticipation makes the day seem almost magical; the cold just makes him more conscious of Dean’s warmth at his side, winter sunlight glinting excitedly every time Dean’s head lifts enough to allow it past the formidable barrier of the hat, and more than any other day they’ve been out together, Cas feels — captivated. He has this vague, persistent sense of _want,_ some humming expectation for what lies ahead, and it’s an impossible distraction.

He’s supposed to look for books, but all he can think of is pulling Dean between the shelves at Cooke’s and kissing him. He settles for watching his mouth as he converses with the owner, some surely irrelevant discussion of Cooke’s son and whatever ambitions he apparently has, and promises himself ‘ _later.’_ He sees Dean’s sticky red lips after pie at the bakery, and he wants to leave his seat, wants to perch in Dean’s lap and hold his face and lick the mess right from his mouth. They walk a little more, and he wants to huddle for warmth by the silent, dry fountain in Market Square and furtively press their lips together beneath the velvet hat, even though Dean’s right and everyone will doubtless be able to see what they’re doing, anyway.

He just — he _doesn’t_ care. He really doesn’t; how could he? Dean’s eyes seem greener today, and his smile seems brighter, and Cas feels vaguely dizzy from the sight of him.

And when he thinks of lying down beside Dean, perhaps even spooning in the quiet dark of the room until Dean’s steady breathing lulls him to sleep — when he thinks of finding Dean, warm at his side, first thing at dawn—

Cas’s heart feels a little bit like it might beat right outside his chest from happiness.

“Dean,” he finally says, once he’s collected a fresh bunch of flowers from Eloise and can no longer bear to keep quiet. “I, um . . . Anna, she said I could — it’s inconvenient, I think, when you have to leave, but I was told — apparently, I . . . I’m allowed to go to you.”

He watches Dean carefully for his reaction, holding his breath.

“Go to me?” Dean echoes, suddenly looking hopeful. “You . . . you wanna come to _me_?”

Besides looking hopeful, the corners of Dean’s mouth turn up, eyes crinkling, like happiness is imminent.

Cas’s heart soars.

“Yes,” he confirms eagerly. “I thought I would spend the night with you at Singer Estate.”

Dean’s expression freezes.

“Oh.”

Unease trickles back in.

“Is that . . . is that alright?”

Dean blinks, then quickly reaches for his hand squeezing.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be awesome. I — I’d love that, Cas. We really get the whole night?”

Cas relaxes, nodding.

“We do. If we want it.”

Dean lifts his brows.

“Uh, yeah. I definitely do. What about you?”

Warmth rushes through Cas, and he smiles.

And even though everyone will _absolutely_ know what he’s doing—

“Very much,” he says softly, and leans in for a kiss, hoping Dean will understand just how much he means that.

Dean drops Cas off at Mills Park to pack an ‘overnight bag’ while he goes to Singer Estate to make arrangements, and Cas takes the opportunity to shave before he heads to his trunk to find a nightgown, fairly confident he has time. They’ll have their baths over there, where there’s taps in the rooms, but Cas’s beard comes in faster than Dean’s and he doesn’t want to delay anything by having to shave later while Dean waits on him.

In any case, he already knows what nightgown and drawers he wants, and he opens the trunk, fully intending to retrieve them from the careful stacks — but as he gingerly thumbs through, his fingers catch on soft, powder blue lace.

He stills, quest for the warm, long-sleeved yellow one suddenly forgotten.

_The barkeep said to tease him with your body._

He swallows, impulsively sliding his hand between the layers, splaying his fingers over the lace.

He’s never worn it, too embarrassed by its rather insubstantial construction, even in the privacy of his room, but he likes to take it out and touch it sometimes, likes to admire its appearance, if not on his own body.

_I think I’d dream about you in your lacy blue nightgown, no matter what you were._

His cheeks burn. He slides it out of the stack, layers of lace slipping over his hand, and even between them, he can still make out his skin, the bumps of his knuckles.

Dean would be able to see everything.

But then — Cas has already shown him just about everything, hasn’t he?

And if Dean wants to see him in the lacy blue nightgown, or at least did at one point — perhaps Cas should show him that, too.

He swallows, lifting it out of the trunk and letting it pool in his lap. Dean could be disappointed, is the thing. He might have imagined something better, something exciting and inviting both, might not like how Cas looks in it at all.

But . . . he might not. He might like it, anyway, the way he likes Cas’s arms, the way he didn’t bat an eye at putting his tongue inside of Cas’s body, the way he offers all his touches, like the privilege might even be _his,_ instead of Cas’s.

And tonight, he’s going to let Cas share his bed for the entire night, let Cas sleep beside him, be the one to greet him in the morning, warm beneath the covers.

Cas thinks, long and hard.

And then he takes a deep breath and gathers up the nightgown, and carries it to his bag.

Cas is quiet, during the baths. He looks at Dean expectantly, once he’s lowered himself into the steaming water, and though Dean spares a thought to wishing they were at home, to wishing this was _his_ room they were sharing bathtime together in, that it would be _his_ bed they retired to after dinner, that it would be all the things he first thought about when Cas said _I could go to you,_ he shakes it away.

He’d wear a thousand feathered velvet crimes against nature if that’s what it took to get even one night like this, Cas all to himself until morning had the nerve to dawn, wherever that happened to be.

“The kitchens’ll bring up dinner in about an hour. And for dessert, I, uh, I went ahead and asked for some teacakes. Kate said you used to order those a lot?”

Cas gives him a warm, approving look, and Dean’s surprised he doesn’t just fall to his knees at the sight, awaiting further instruction while he basks in the glow of Cas being _pleased_ with him.

(Cas is going to spend the night, and Dean is a fucking mess.)

“I did. Thank you.”

“Sure. Anything.” Dean clears his throat, and then he does ease himself to his knees beside the tub. It’s more spacious than the one at Mills Park, gleaming in the light of the fire, and Cas is mostly obscured by the soapy water, the tub leaving plenty more room for his legs to stretch.

(Dean wishes it were like his bath at home, big enough that he might have a decent shot of asking to just share.)

Anyway, Cas just watches him, skin taking on a pretty flush, dark hair already looking damp from the humidity rising off the water, and Dean feels like he’s melting.

(They’re going to _sleep_ together, the whole night, not an ounce of just-met-you awkwardness or gonna-have-to-force-you-to-bear-my-children guilt between them.)

(Cas might even want to _spoon._ )

“Are you alright?” Cas asks quietly, and Dean realizes he’s just been sitting there, staring like an idiot.

“Yeah, definitely, just — I’m really — I’m looking forward to sleeping with you,” he blurts out, and Cas’s brows lift.

And then it’s like his whole body relaxes, light creeping into his eyes, and if a smile could kill a man, Cas would have murdered Dean in the end after all.

“Me, too, Dean,” he admits. “I’ve been excited for it all day. It — it’s been all I could think about.”

Dean’s insides feel like they sort of flutter and smoosh together, heart furiously pumping blood to sustain the chaos.

“Awesome,” he manages, and Cas just — _beams,_ and oh, jesus, this does not bode well for Dean’s performance tonight. “I — I’m gonna — if you’re ready.”

He sort of holds the washcloth up, and Cas nods, leaning back more solidly and resting his arms along the edges of the tub, and with a deep breath, Dean gets to work.

He moves slowly — they have time, after all — and Cas just keeps looking at him, lifting his arms and legs every time Dean silently prompts him, like a weirdly-coordinated dance between them as Dean painstakingly scrubs him down.

Dean looks at him in question, when he reaches the top of his thighs, and Cas offers a barely discernible nod, bracing his arms on the side of the tub and lifting his hips. Heart pounding, Dean carefully strokes Cas’s unmistakably hard cock clean, and with a quiet breath for strength, slides the cloth behind him.

At last, Cas closes his eyes.

Dean swears he pushes against the cloth, just like he pushed against Dean’s tongue last night, and fuck, they should have eaten dinner _first._

He tries his luck, anyway, passes over Cas a second time, slow and firm, and Cas sighs.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, and Dean’s so startled he laughs.

“Uh, sure. Any time.”

Cas opens his eyes, smiling, and Dean sets the cloth down, heat subsiding a little, fondness nudging it aside.

“Ready for me to do your hair?”

Cas nods, sliding low to submerge his hair, and Dean scoots around to the head of it, retrieving the shampoo.

He kind of loves this part, even if the fact that Cas uses it as an excuse to blatantly bare his throat to Dean also drives him a little crazy.

“Close your eyes?” Dean reminds him, and Cas nods, wet lashes brushing his cheeks as he obliges, and Dean begins working the shampoo through his hair, hopelessly conscious of the increasingly sharp angle of Cas’s head.

“Are you going to kiss my neck?” Cas mumbles, and Dean snorts.

“When I’m pretty sure most of your hair is clean.”

“Fair,” Cas agrees, head lolling to the side of the tub, and Dean grins down at him.

“Hey. You know how you’re gorgeous?”

Cas huffs, but Dean can see the corner of his smile.

“So you say.”

“Well, you’re also really fucking cute. Just so you know.”

“Cute,” Cas repeats, curious. “How am I cute?”

“You just are. Especially when you want something. You’re really cute when you want something.”

Cas’s brow creases.

“I see.” He pauses. “Yes. That makes sense.”

Dean frowns.

“What’s that tone?”

“What tone?”

“That thoughtful, ‘aha’ tone.”

“Oh. Just — that provides context. For why you behave the way you do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re very indulgent,” Cas says simply. “I didn’t know demands actually appealed to you, though.”

Dean snorts.

“It’s not about the demands, Cas. It’s about — the way you make them. You — you do a thing. And it’s cute. And it makes me want to give you whatever you want.”

Cas is quiet for a moment.

“Whatever I want,” he murmurs, turning his head when Dean gently pushes it to the other side. “Really?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

Cas nods slightly, and then he takes a deep breath.

“Later — will you bite me?”

Dean’s hands freeze, along with his heart and lungs and a bunch of other important shit, not that he has space to worry about it right now.

“Uh. I — I—"

And it’s not that he doesn’t _want_ to — he’s wanted to for longer than he hasn’t — but that — that’s fucking huge, and Cas is asking it like a casual question, even though he has to know that’s a big deal, unless he doesn’t actually know how a mating works, which — shit, he might _not —_ and even if he did and he’s point blank inviting Dean to mate him, the council’ll freak out and probably forbid Dean from ever seeing him again and watching Cas in his life here has just made it clear that isolating him in the wilderness is one-hundred-percent not a valid option.

“I think,” Cas continues, like he’s oblivious to the crisis. “It, um. When you’ve come close, it — it hurts in the ‘fun’ way. But I don’t think it will be permanent. Will that be okay?”

Dean’s not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved that Cas clearly doesn’t know what he’s asking for.

“Ah.” He clears his throat, resuming the hairwashing. “Kinda depends. Is it okay if it’s, uh, on your shoulder or something?”

“Of course.” Cas sounds puzzled. “It certainly can’t be on my neck.”

Dean goes still again.

“Oh. Okay. I — I thought that might have been what you were asking.”

Cas snorts.

“Dean, we’d end up _mated_ ,” he says, and Dean tries not to read too much into his tone, until— “I’d never ask for that.”

Dean’s not crushed. Dean is totally, absolutely not crushed. Dean has Cas naked in the bath and they’re going to cuddle and sleep together and mating was never actually on the table anyway, even if Dean kind of wants to with every fiber of his being, and everything is fine.

Cas’s head jerks out of his grasp, eyes flying open as he twists to look at Dean.

“Dean?”

Dean coughs.

“Sorry. I just — I just remembered something.”

Cas’s brow knits, soapy hair tufting out every which way in a manner that Dean only distantly registers as adorable.

“What?”

“I — uh — I just — uh. Charlie — Charlie’s — cat died?”

Cas blinks, and Dean sort of wants to sink into the floor.

“Charlie has a cat?” He frowns. “Why didn’t she ever bring it with her?”

“She got it since you left,” Dean says quickly, and Cas’s face falls.

“It must have been barely more than a kitten. What happened?”

Dean hesitates.

“It . . . ate something it shouldn’t.” He coughs. “From the kitchen garden. Some . . . herb or something.”

“That’s terrible,” Cas says, still looking a little shocked. “I should write her a letter.”

Which — Charlie’s going to out him immediately, and even if she weren’t, Cas actually _smells_ sad, and that — Dean grimaces, shutting his eyes.

“Wait.” He sighs. “That — sorry, that’s a lie, she didn’t have a cat, I just — I thought of something kinda unhappy, but — but I’m not really comfortable talking about it.”

Cas just stares at him for a moment.

And then his expression darkens.

“Dean. You — I’m extremely fond of you, but — you can’t make up a dead animal every time you’re reluctant to tell me something. These are — _horrifying_ stories, and it’s very upsetting.”

Dean slumps.

Of course Cas wouldn’t want a mate who lies about cherished pets and their terrible, untimely deaths just because he’s too insecure to talk about his feelings.

Of _course_.

“Right. Right, that — that’s totally fair, I just — it just kinda pops out.”

Cas sighs.

“I underst—" He stops, frowning. “I _accept_ that you struggle with this. And you’re never obligated to share with me, whatever it is, but — you have to stop lying.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will,” he agrees meekly, and after a beat, Cas’s hand reaches out, clasping Dean’s shoulder with wet, pruney fingers.

“Good. And Dean — if you do want to talk about something . . . I’ll listen.”

Dean covers Cas’s hand with one of his own, nodding.

“Yeah. Thanks. I just — it’s complicated, and I’m, uh. I’m still kinda trying to — to sort out how I feel about it.”

“I see.”

“But — it’s not important. We were in the middle of something.” Dean clears his throat. “C’mon. Dinner’ll be here soon, let’s finish up.”

Cas studies him for a moment longer, fingers twitching over Dean’s shoulder, and then he nods, withdrawing his hand and settling back against the tub.

“Alright. But — it is important. Maybe we could — talk through it, when dinner is here. If you’d like.”

“Maybe,” Dean mumbles, sliding his fingers back into Cas’s hair. “We’ll see.”

He takes a deep breath, reminds himself that this is a good night for him _,_ a _great_ one, and things like bites and mates don’t really matter.

And then, he carefully finishes washing Cas’s hair.

Objectively speaking, Cas is a lot worse at staying on track when it comes to bathing someone.

Dean’s not going to say he himself is _great,_ or anything, but it’s usually Cas’s fault if he isn’t, and for the most part, he can finish bathing Cas from start to finish without a whole lot in the way of sexy interruptions.

Cas?

Well, Cas seems to have a little more trouble, but that’s fine, because _subjectively_ speaking . . .

Dean’s pretty okay with it.

Anyway, dinner knocks around the time Dean’s half-wondering, half-hoping Cas is going to just try and crawl into the tub with him in pursuit of a more comfortable position to make out, and after Dean manages to pry his mouth away and nonchalantly call out instructions to please leave it outside the door, Cas reluctantly returns to focus and finishes his back and hair.

He helps Dean dry off, and then they move to separate sides of the room, Dean to the armoire and Cas to his overnight bag, and Dean politely faces away while he dresses for bed and waits for Cas to do the same.

It is thus a huge surprise to him when he turns around and sees what exactly Cas decided to dress in.

Cas is smiling uncertainly, cheeks a little red, a slight question in his eyes, and on some level, Dean recognizes this is probably a big deal for him and some appropriately complimentary words would be nice.

He can’t find them.

After a beat, Cas clears his throat, looking down.

“I . . . I don’t know what you pictured. When you imagined it. I hope it’s not disappointing.”

Which — that kinda makes it sound like past just deciding Dean was a _worthy_ audience for a nightgown he wasn’t totally comfortable wearing , he is, actually, specifically wearing it _for_ Dean.

Dean’s so confused.

He’s trying to be patient, trying to wait and see, but — he has no idea how to read any of this, not all together, and it’s like one giant up and down of hope and doubt and a guilty avoidance of reality.

“It’s not,” he finally manages, and blue eyes flick to his, sharp. “Don’t see how it could be.”

Cas hesitates, mouth soft and unsure.

“Is it? What you imagined?”

“Uh. No. No, my — my imagination’s actually not that good.” Dean clears his throat. “Good thing, too. If I, uh. If I had this in my head, I don’t think I’d get anything done.”

Cas blinks.

“What does that mean?”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“It means you look — beyond words. But — beautiful.” He tries to smile. “If I thought about you like this a lot before, after this, it — it’s gonna be hard to focus on anything else.”

Cas nods slowly.

“And . . . that’s a good thing.”

“Yeah.”

“You like how it looks,” he adds, and Dean huffs a laugh.

“More than I can say,” he offers honestly, and after another beat of contemplation, Cas smiles slightly.

“Oh. Good.” He nods toward the door. “Should I bring in dinner?”

Dean hesitates. And he probably shouldn’t say this, especially after what Cas said about mating, but Cas also made it clear he didn’t want Dean giving anyone else orgasms, so . . .

“Nah. I don’t wanna risk anyone else getting to see you like that,” he admits, and without waiting for a response, hastens to the door.

“What troubled you, earlier? If you don’t mind.”

Dean pauses, a little surprised. They’ve barely put their napkins in their laps, plates still covered, and honestly, he wasn’t expecting Cas to bring it up again at all.

Of course, this _is_ Cas. His bluntness is kind of a double-edged sword.

“Uh. Just . . . like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Alright.” A pause. “Can I help?”

Dean hesitates.

And then, before he can think better of it—

“Do you think I’d make a good mate?”

Cas goes perfectly still, blinking.

And then his jaw tenses.

“For whom?” he asks stiffly, and it’s Dean’s turn to be startled.

“Uh. No one. I just mean — hypothetically. I don’t think my dad or the council would let me, but — if they did. Do you think I would be?”

Cas relaxes slightly.

“Yes,” he says, and without prompting, adds, “I think you’d make a wonderful mate, Dean.”

_But you’d never ask me to be yours,_ he wants to press, but he thinks that might be going too far.

Cas put on a pretty nightgown and came all the way over here to spend a nice evening getting laid and snuggling with his buddy, and he doesn’t deserve to be badgered by Dean’s insecurity and clinginess.

“I just . . . I wonder sometimes,” he hedges. “’Cause of things like — lying about pets dying, you know? Or thinking you were trying to kill me. Or not standing up to the council about all the New Eden bullshit. I don’t — I’m not always — reliable? In any of the ways. And . . . I don’t know if I _would_ make someone a good mate.”

Cas frowns.

“There’s much more to you than any of that, Dean. And I wouldn’t say they make you _unreliable,_ so much as — occasionally difficult.”

Dean huffs a laugh, looking down.

“Right, but — still. Nobody wants a difficult alpha.”

Cas squints.

“Lucy says _all_ alphas are difficult. Personally, I find you very easy.”

Dean snorts.

“You do, huh?”

“Yes,” Cas says seriously. “If . . . if I had to be mated to someone — hypothetically speaking — it would be you. You’re a wonderful companion, Dean. Those things — they’re minor nuisances, and the least of who you are. I think a life spent with you would be a life very well-lived.”

Dean swallows.

“Oh.”

So — so maybe it’s _not_ about Dean. Maybe Cas really does just feel like, after everything he’s been through, a mate is a risk he’s not willing to take — a commitment he doesn’t want to make, to anyone.

Thinking he’d pick Dean, if for some reason he had to — that’s a pretty big deal, isn’t it? Hell, one could even argue that that’s _way_ more significant than getting all possessive at the docks. Feeling protective over your orgasms is one thing, but objectively stating that being stuck with Dean for life wouldn’t be that bad a shake is like — that’s _huge!_

Isn’t it?

Of course, the real problem is — as it always is — what does Cas _mean_ by it?

What’s even safe to say to Cas in return?

“Thanks, man. And, uh. Same?” he offers tentatively. “I think — anybody’d feel good about being mated to you. You — you’re really great.”

He holds his breath, worried that was too far, too revealing, but Cas just looks at him for a moment, unreadable.

Then he nods.

“But neither of us are going to mate anyone,” he says, tone something Dean can’t quite identify, and then reaches for the cover on his plate, adding: “I’d still like you to bite me somewhere, though.”

Substantially less hopeless than he was at the end of Cas’s bath, Dean quickly nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I can do that.”

Cas smiles briefly.

“Thank you,” he says, then picks up his fork and begins to eat.

The rest of dinner is a special kind of hell, and Dean would honestly not be surprised if, at the end, you informed him that he didn’t eat a goddamn thing, or maybe even fed all of it to the napkin in his lap.

(Which, speaking of his _lap_ —)

He tries, but the thing is, Cas _is_ wearing the blue nightgown, and there _weren’t_ any post-bath orgasms, and Cas smells sweet and happy and he wants Dean to bite him, even if he’s anti-mate in general, and also he’s wearing the blue nightgown, and put together, Dean’s focus is shot to hell.

Cas gets cake crumbles on his soft, pink lips when they finally make it to dessert, and Dean wants to climb right over the table and lick them off. The collar of the nightgown is high, prim satin buttons darting up the throat, but it does fuck all to preserve any modesty, and the line of Cas’s collarbone is still sharp through the lace, the movements of his pretty, pretty throat easily discernible as he speaks and swallows.

Dean wants to touch it, desperately, wants his fingers on those buttons, flicking them free of the delicate little loops that bind them, and then he wants to nudge aside the lace and replace it with his teeth, wants to sink into Cas in the most intimate way a person can, just to make sure no one else ever gets the privilege, Cas’s ‘I’d never ask you’ be damned.

It’s almost too much, he thinks. Cas getting jealous, Cas watching him with soft, happy eyes all day, Cas in his blue nightgown, Cas spending the night with him, Cas telling him a life spent with Dean would be a life well-lived, when Dean’s incredibly conscious of the fact that you don’t have to _mate_ to spend your life with someone.

How the hell is Dean supposed to just go _home_ after this? How is he supposed to be patient, to wait, when all his instincts are taking everything Cas says and does as an eagerly-awaited sign in the affirmative, telling caution and logic and the utterly depressing ‘but’s to all just go fuck themselves?

Cas clears his throat.

“Are you going to finish your cake?”

“Oh. Uh. No. Cake’s not my favorite.”

“Ah. You should have asked for pie.”

Dean smiles a little.

“Wasn’t for me.”

Cas smiles back, although there’s a tension that wasn’t there a moment ago.

“Are you finished, then?”

“Uh. Yeah. I think so. How ‘bout you?”

Cas pauses, then nods.

“Yes.” He pushes his chair back, rising, and oh, jesus, _that fucking nightgown._

Dean swallows, struggling to keep his eyes on level with Cas’s. It helps that Cas is looking back at him kind of seriously, for the circumstances, and Dean shoves aside the sudden wave of lust, keen to address it.

“Dean,” Cas starts, and Dean nods, a little worried about what comes next.

“Yeah?”

Cas takes a deep breath.

“My, um. My — my desire for you is endless,” he says awkwardly, and then gives Dean such a hopeful, uncertain look, Dean’s surprised he doesn’t burst into flames from sheer intensity of _feeling_ he experiences as the words register.

Any other time, with any other person, he’d laugh, because what the hell kind of line is that, but Cas—

Cas isn’t laughing, is clearly waiting, waiting on _Dean,_ and Dean—

Dean scrambles out of his chair and closes the distance between them, taking Cas’s face in his hands and kissing him.

“Oh, God,” he mumbles, thumbing frantically over Cas’s cheek, tracing the bone. “Same, Cas. So fucking endless.”

He thinks he feels Cas smile, definitely feels Cas press back into him, eager and wanting, and then those fucking _arms_ are wrapping tight around him, and Dean can’t help himself.

He drops his hands, lets them skim down Cas’s soft, lacy front, and then he puts his arms around Cas’s waist and squeezes tight.

“Gonna take you to bed now,” he informs him, waiting for a protest, but Cas just keeps kissing him, clinging tighter, so Dean lifts him and starts moving swiftly toward the bed.

Cas sucks in a breath, fingers suddenly digging in, and Dean hastily leans down as he gets there, letting go of Cas’s waist.

“Sorry,” he says, Cas immediately pulling back to look at him with wide eyes.

“No,” he says quickly. “No, that was good, Dean. I enjoyed that.”

Dean grins.

“Yeah? Well, there’s a reason I was bummed I missed you carrying me up the stairs.”

“Oh.” Cas blinks, then nods. “I understand, now.”

Dean sits down beside him, catching his eye.

“Kind of another way we fit well,” he tries. “Not everybody can just — carry each other around.”

“That’s true,” Cas agrees, mouth curving into a smile of his own. “It’s nice, that we can.”

“Sure is.” They sort of look at each other for a moment, and then Cas glances over his shoulder before giving Dean a questioning look.

“What next?”

“Oh. Right. Uh — remember last night, I said there was something I kinda wanted to try?”

Cas nods.

“What is it?”

“So — uh, first of all — do you still feel good about what we did? How I touched you?”

“Yes,” Cas says immediately. “Very.”

“Awesome. How, uh. How do you feel about — tonight, maybe I could my mouth on your cock?”

Cas draws back slightly.

“On my cock?”

“Like — it feels good, when my hand is slick, and it’s wrapped around it, right? So the idea is that my mouth’ll feel good, too, kinda for the same reasons.”

Cas considers this for a long moment, then nods slowly.

“Alright. We can try that. How should I be?”

“Just — lean back against the pillows, however’s comfortable? It’s, uh. It’s gonna be kind of like last night, but the opposite. You lie back and I’ll push up your nightgown and . . . I’ll taste you.”

“Ah.” Cas swallows, then carefully starts scooting back. “That . . . sounds nice.”

Dean waits, and then Cas is there, easing back against the neatly arranged pillows (not that Dean raced home and refreshed and reorganized his bedding or anything), and when he’s settled, nightgown splayed out on either side of him, strong forearms emerging from the softly billowed sleeves and nipples dusky through all that sheer, pale blue lace, his cock half-hard beneath the gathers at his hips—

Dean’s breath literally catches.

Cas is looking at Dean, cheeks red and eyes blue and so much light in his face, watching Dean expectantly, and in that moment, Dean’s struck by just how — how _good_ he looks.

And not just in the knee-weakening, lust-inducing sexy way; mostly he looks — he looks — _absolutely_ good, in every way you could mean it _._ Dean’s suddenly thinking, trying to picture Cas knowingly doing harm, trying to imagine him having _ever_ done anything to hurt someone, in his whole entire life — handing that councilman’s son his ass counts not at all — and he can’t picture it.

Because even after everything that’s ever happened to him, Cas _is_ good. He’s the best.

And no matter where they go from here — Dean’s pretty sure that’s just who he is, and who he’s always going to be.

“Dean?”

“You’re a miracle,” Dean blurts out, then winces. “Sorry. Just — uh. You are. You, being you. And then — fuck, being here with me — it’s jus —"

Cas’s face changes to one of understanding, and he holds out one graceful, tanned hand, palm up. Dean takes it, and he loves the roughness to it, almost as much as he loves the gentleness with which it holds his.

There’s not really a good reason for someone to be gentle with Dean, and there’s definitely not a good reason for that someone to be Cas, for Cas to want to be here with him in the first place, but Dean — Dean’ll hold onto that, anyway.

“Yes,” Cas agrees. “We met, and — we’re together. It does seem like a miracle. A very nice miracle.”

Dean huffs a laugh, a little strained, not that his throat’s suddenly feeling tight or anything.

“Yeah. But also — you. Just . . . I can’t believe you exist.”

Cas tilts his head.

“I am technically rare,” he agrees, and Dean laughs again, crawling further onto the bed.

“You’re a fucking treasure,” he chokes out — just because of the laughter, nothing more — and then he straddles Cas’s thighs, still holding hands for balance, and kisses him.

*** (begin scene two)

The blue nightgown, Cas decides, was an excellent decision.

Once he has Dean on the bed, knees planted on either side of Cas’s thighs as he gently pushes him back against the pillows and kisses him, Dean’s hands are, for lack of a better word, _everywhere._

Cas doesn’t think Dean’s ever touched him so much, seeming almost obsessed as he runs his hands over Cas’s chest and shoulders and arms, periodically drifting to grasp at his waist and hips, and Cas is delighted to find the lace as flimsy a barrier to touch as it is to sight, Dean’s hands warm and sure through the thin material as they roam freely, grounding and provoking all at once.

He was a little worried, the first moment Dean turned around, failing to speak, but he’d looked at Cas in a way that had Cas’s heart thudding relentlessly in his chest, and then he’d said — he’d said _things,_ fantastic things, things a little bit like Cas thinks he might have liked to hear when Dean came to collect him for the Drive, except _better,_ because they’ve come so very far since then, reached a point where Dean touches him freely, where Cas wants him to, where Dean calls him a miracle and says that anyone would feel good about being mated to him, where they will spend a night together because they _want_ to.

(Cas wonders, in some small, hopeful part of him, if in another life, where Dean was a regular citizen, had perhaps met Cas at the docks or the bakery or in a glance across the fountain in Market Square, Dean might have turned out to be such an ‘anyone.’)

Dean groans softly, mouth slipping away from Cas’s as he ducks his chin, addressing Cas’s jaw and sweetly trailing his way to Cas’s ear, and Cas obligingly tips his head to the side, elated.

“Not yet, though,” he whispers. “Wait to bite me. When the coming is about to happen.”

Dean pauses, breath puffing warmly against his earlobe.

“When you’re about to come,” Dean corrects him. “You’re gonna have to tell me when you’re close then, or else my mouth’ll be a little preoccupied.”

Cas closes his eyes.

“On my — cock.”

Dean snorts softly.

“Yeah. On your cock.”

“Alright. I’ll try.”

Dean hums, and then resumes his kisses.

“Can’t reach,” Dean murmurs, and Cas is about to ask, but then Dean’s fingers are fumbling the buttons on his collar open, are smoothly folding it down and away, and then his lips are on Cas’s neck and all things are good and right in the world and Cas just lets himself sink back into the pillows as he relishes the attention.

Disappointingly, Dean has barely sucked the skin at the base of his throat into tingling sensitivity before he’s pulling away again, palm settling over Cas’s heart.

“Can I kiss your chest, Cas?”

Cas opens his eyes, squinting at him as best he can.

“I’ll have to take off my nightgown.”

“Mm. Nah, it should be okay. Can I?”

“If you’d like,” Cas agrees, a little puzzled, but then Dean’s scooting back and ducking his head and—

Cas jerks, hands instinctively flying up to seize Dean’s arms as he straightens his head.

Dean pauses, mouth warm around Cas’s nipple.

“Dean. What are you doing?”

There’s a soft, wet flick against it, and then Dean lifts his head away, air cool against the damp fabric covering it.

“Kissing your chest,” he says, green eyes blinking innocently, and Cas swallows.

“You — you’re sucking my — my—"

Cas can’t quite bring himself to say it, and Dean grins, palm shifting, a thumb slipping over the dry one.

“These? Your nipples?”

Cas’s cheeks heat.

“Yes.”

“Okay, well. That’s not all I’ll be sucking—" _what_? “—and if it’s okay, I’d kinda like to keep doing it.”

Cas stares at him for a moment.

And then he shuts his eyes and lets his head fall back once more.

“Okay,” he agrees, and then Dean’s mouth is there, hot and moist, lace suddenly feeling disconcertingly rough as Dean’s tongue wets and pushes against it, and by the time Dean moves on to the other one, fingers replacing his mouth on the first as he lightly pinches it between them, occasionally rolling, Cas is clutching Dean’s upper arms and squirming.

He’s about to plead for some reprieve, skin on fire and chest tingling in an utterly unfamiliar way, when Dean pulls off, sitting back.

“Think I wanna taste you now,” he says, pupils dark as he stares at Cas.

He is almost certainly not looking at Cas’s face.

Cas just nods, and at last, Dean’s eyes meet his, lips shiny as they quirk into a smile.

“I need to lie down.” He touches Cas’s thigh, thumb skimming the top. “Can you spread your legs a little?”

Cas hesitates, then slowly, moves his thighs apart, Dean’s own knees scooting wider to accommodate them.

“A little more,” Dean instructs, and Cas feels all kinds of hot and obscene, deeply conscious of the transparent lace, of the wetness over his groin, his penis fully hard. Dean gives an approving nod, and then he shifts, settling between Cas’s legs and carefully scooting down the bed before moving onto his stomach.

Cas looks down at him, pulse fast and nervous in his chest.

“Just gonna push this up, so I can get to you,” Dean murmurs, fingers touching the hem of the nightgown, and Cas simply nods, muscles in his thighs twitching as Dean slowly starts peeling back the lace, sliding it up and up and up, leaving him bare and exposed like he was last night, when Dean was taking off his drawers, face inches away.

This time, he’ll be left that way.

Dean neatly arranges the gathers over Cas’s stomach, just above the wet head of his penis, and then he glances up at Cas.

“This okay?”

Cas swallows, then nods.

“I think so.”

“Tell me if it’s not.”

Cas takes a deep breath, shaking his head.

“It’s okay. Proceed.”

Dean nods.

And then he shifts to one elbow, other hand reaching for Cas’s penis, and firmly grasps the base.

Cas shuts his eyes, breaths quickening as sensation floods him.

Dean touching his penis always feels so _good._

“Do you need slick?” he manages to ask, and Dean hums.

“Nah. There’s a, uh. A third option, for getting it wet.”

“What is— _oh._ ”

Cas’s words dry up just as Dean leans down and brushes his lips against Cas’s penis, right against the head.

“Saliva.”

Cas makes a face despite his pleasure.

“You’re going to spit on my penis?”

Dean chuckles.

“No. But I’m going to put my mouth on it.”

“Yes, and it feels very nice, but how will—"

Cas doesn’t even _know_ how to describe the sound that escapes him as Dean’s tongue darts out, lapping the moisture from Cas’s head, and he sincerely hopes it sounded different to Dean’s ears than it did to his own.

“Like that,” Dean whispers, and then he does it again, a broader stroke, this time, and then _again,_ tilting his head and lapping all around him, and before Cas can even muster some kind of response, twitching and gasping from the feeling, Dean’s mouth _surrounds_ him, sliding down his shaft.

“Nnh!” Cas cries out weakly, twisting away.

Dean releases him, pulling back, though not without dragging his lips against the sensitive flesh, and Cas shudders involuntarily, giving him a betrayed look.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to do that,” he whispers, panting, and Dean looks startled.

“I — shit, I thought I said I was going to put my mouth on you?”

“ _On,”_ Cas snaps, stomach tense. He can feel his opening spasm, for some reason, slick pooling beneath him and sweat beading at his brow, and a large part of him thinks the distinction might not matter, just wants Dean to do it again, anyway. “You said _on,_ not — you’re putting my penis in your _mouth._ ”

Dean blinks, taken aback.

“I — uh. Yeah. I guess — technically — but that’s what ‘on’ means here. It means I suck your cock.”

Cas nearly swallows his tongue.

“You — what?”

“I put my mouth around you and I — I suck. It’s — it’ll be kinda tight and wet, and it — it’s supposed to feel good. Like when it’s my hand.” Dean bites his lip, worried. “Was it bad?”

“No, but — it — it was a lot. You didn’t warn me.”

“Oh.” Dean moves his hand to Cas’s thigh, lightly stroking. “Sorry, sweetheart. I thought I had. I, uh. I probably should have gone into more detail.”

“You should have,” Cas mutters, still struggling to catch his breath, an almost painful sort of throb in his groin.

Dean looks dismayed.

“Do you wanna quit?”

Cas quickly shakes his head.

“No. I just — is that all? There’s nothing else I should know? It’s just — it’s what you just did?”

“Uh. I — I’ll probably go further? It’s been a while for me, so I don’t know how it’ll go, but — I’d like to get all of you in my mouth, if I can.”

Cas promptly looks down at his penis, a little horrified.

“You want to — you intend to put the entirety of my penis in your _mouth_?”

Dean gives him an awkward look.

“Uh. Yeah? At least for a few seconds? I’m gonna — I do a, uh, a swallowing thing, and it kind of — like I said, it’s supposed to feel really good.”

Cas stares for a moment, trying to picture it.

“And . . . how did you come up with this?” Creative, Cas thought the other day.

Clearly, he had no idea, the depths of Dean’s inventiveness.

Dean’s brows lift.

“ _I_ didn’t come up with this. It’s just — a lot of people with dicks just like getting them sucked. It’s — it’s kind of a thing?”

“Oh.” Cas frowns, and then another thought occurs to him. “You have a dick.”

Dean gives him a quizzical smile, cheeks beginning to look a little red.

“Yeah? Yeah, I — I do.”

“Are you going to want to put it in my mouth?”

Dean’s throat bobs on a swallow, expression suddenly uncertain.

“Not — not if you don’t want me to.”

Cas hesitates, trying to picture it, and abruptly, remembers last night.

“I don’t know,” he finally says. “I liked your fingers in my mouth, but — your penis is much bigger, Dean, especially if it’s going to be erect. I’m not sure I’ll enjoy it.”

“Then you don’t have to do it,” Dean says simply. “And definitely not tonight. I think this is, uh. Enough new for one evening.”

Cas can’t help but agree with that.

“Is it . . . do you still want me to do it?” Dean adds, and Cas studies him for a moment.

“Do _you_ enjoy it?”

Dean nods.

‘Yeah. I do. Assuming you do. The, uh. The best part should be how you react.”

“Oh.” Cas sighs. “I’m sorry. I did it wrong, didn’t I?”

“What? Dude, no. I messed up. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Cas gives him a doubtful look, but Dean just smiles, squeezing his thigh.

“Trust me, you didn’t. Is it okay if I try again, though? See if we can, uh. Bring it together?”

“Alright,” Cas agrees, deciding that if he’s actually _prepared_ for it, it should go much more smoothly.

But then Dean smiles at him and leans forward and starts mouthing at Cas’s penis, tongue lapping rather generously, with varying degrees of pressure, and all sorts of things in Cas’s body start feeling tight, his hips trembling, and when Dean takes a breath and closes his mouth back around it—

Cas cries out, jerking a little.

Except this time, Dean keeps going, pulls off only slightly before he’s sliding his lips back down, tongue pushing up against the underside of Cas’s penis, the roof of his mouth slick and soft and dear God, there is no such thing as being prepared for _this._

Cas can feel his buttocks clench tight, like his body’s desperately trying to redistribute the feeling, trying to manage it, but if that’s the case, it’s failing.

A hot sort of need swells within him, and when Dean’s mouth sinks even further, perilously close to the base of his penis, Cas’s hands fly to his head, fingers twisting in his short, soft brown hair as he helplessly thrusts back against the wonderful, wet pressure.

Dean makes a choked noise, and this time, when his mouth leaves Cas, it’s a struggle not to beg for its return.

“Hey,” Dean pants. “Can I touch you?”

“You are,” Cas protests, and it is not a whimper, not at all.

“I mean — can I stroke you, the way you asked for last night? Can I put any of my fingers in you?”

Cas’s mouth opens.

“I — instead of this?”

Dean just _grins._

“No. At the same time.”

“You can _do_ that?”

“Well, buddy, I can certainly try.”

Cas thinks about it briefly, worries about it for even less time, spares a split second’s thought to reassuring himself that it will be far less intense without Dean’s tongue doing what it had done, and then nods.

“Alright. Whatever — whatever you think I’ll enjoy. Please put your mouth back on my penis, though.”

“Cock,” Dean returns, winking, and then it’s _there,_ and Cas shuts his eyes and clutches Dean’s head and he’s not sure who _actually_ invented this, but he hopes they received an appropriate return on their efforts because it is _wonderful._

Except then Dean’s fingers are slipping between his thighs, cleverly pushing up, stroking over Cas’s opening, slipping wildly through the mess there, and overwhelming heat pours through him like he’s a teapot and Dean’s mouth and fingers are a kettle, fresh from the stove and tipping into him.

Cas moans, helpless and loud, and Dean makes an appreciative sound around his penis, cheeks hollowing as he does the sucking thing and Cas’s hips hitch upward, fingers tight in Dean’s hair, but then there’s a fingertip, gently pushing into him, and Cas can feel himself open for it, an unexpectedly eager dilation as Dean’s whole finger easily slips inside and Cas presses down, instinctively chasing that, too.

Dean groans, but his mouth doesn’t leave Cas’s penis, finger thrusting diligently inside him, and this might well be the sexiest torture Cas has experienced to date. He couldn’t control his body if he _tried,_ hips seeming to move to and fro of their own volition, an urgent need for the wet heat of Dean’s mouth not at all tempered by the way Dean’s finger strokes inside of him, Cas clenching around it on every press inside.

And then the finger slides out, and there’s a slight pressure as Cas feels a second one join it as it reenters him, a different feeling than when it was Dean’s tongue, but he stutters only briefly before he resumes his rhythm, rocking urgently as Dean sucks him and touches him and makes all manner of encouraging sounds around him.

“This — this is so nice, Dean,” he almost sobs. “Please don’t stop.”

And Dean — Dean outright _growls_ at that, sound vibrating all along Cas’s penis, and then his fingers thrust in _hard,_ mouth sinking all the way down around Cas, nose brushing his stomach, and then he does the _swallowing_ thing he mentioned and Cas unconsciously yanks at his hair, tears gathering in his eyes from the overwhelming pleasure.

“Close,” he chokes out. “The coming — I’m — the—"

Dean swallows around him once more, Cas jerking and shuddering, and then his fingers slide out and he shakes free of Cas’s hands and practically lurches up the bed, mouth finding Cas’s, and there’s an unfamiliar taste there, salty and strange, and only when Dean’s lips slide away, dropping to his throat, does Cas realize what it was.

Heat rushes through him, and he doesn’t know why the idea is so appealing, that Dean would now taste of Cas’s body, of what he’s done to it, but it _is._

“Gonna touch us together now,” Dean whispers, looking at him, and Cas nods, reaching to wrap his arms around him.

“Please,” is all he says, and Dean shudders and presses down against him, thrusting his penis alongside Cas’s.

“Christ, Cas,” he moans, breaths shallow as he works his hips against Cas’s. “Wish I could have a portrait of you like this. You’re so — God, Cas, you’re _perfect_. Every goddamn thing about you is perfect. I’ve never — I haven’t ever met anybody as perfect as you are, and I never will. It’s just — it’s just you, okay? Just you.”

Cas simply clutches him and nods, a little confused but mostly thrilled, his orgasm still approaching, despite the wanting sort of ache in his posterior. He’s not perfect, objectively speaking, but he can’t imagine that Dean is being anything but honest with him right now, and Cas understands that this means he must be very special to Dean.

And really — Cas doesn’t need to be perfect to anyone else.

“You, too,” he whispers, cupping the back of Dean’s head. “Perfect.”

Dean makes a choked sound, and then he shifts slightly, ducks his head and starts mouthing at Cas’s shoulder, one hand slipping between them, and where Cas expects it to encircle their penises, to help stroke them to the final moment—

It moves right past, tucking between Cas’s legs and pushing those two fingers back inside him.

Cas jerks, crying out in shock and pleasure both, but Dean keeps frantically thrusting inside, hips turning clumsy, not that Cas can be bothered to care, and ‘close’ morphs immediately to ‘imminent.’

And then Dean’s teeth sink into his shoulder, sharp where they clamp down on the skin, Cas’s body locking up in shock at the searing flash of pain that results, and just as he predicted—

His orgasm seems to crash over him, blinding and ferocious. Cas squeezes tight everywhere he’s wrapped around some part of Dean and cries out as the pleasure overwhelms him, and for an endless, beautiful moment, there’s nothing else.

***

His other senses return gradually, Dean’s tongue lapping at his shoulder, soothing, nonsense murmurs pressed to it after every few strokes.

Cas’s fingers hurt, and it’s several seconds after the pain registers that he realizes the cause.

He quickly lets go of Dean’s shoulders, guilt dampening the lingering shocks of pleasure.

“Sorry,” he whispers, a little panicked, but Dean hums.

“Don’t be. Feels good.”

“It’s probably going to bruise.”

“Good,” Dean says, and Cas has no idea what to say to that. Dean pulls away then, looking at him with warm eyes. “How’s your shoulder, though? I tried not to break the skin by too much; didn’t want it to scar.”

Cas isn’t sure he’d care if it did — he has plenty of scars, as it is, and he doesn’t doubt this one would be his favorite — but he appreciates the consideration nonetheless.

There’s a dull throb in his shoulder, but he expected it, and it’s not entirely unpleasant.

“Good,” he echoes Dean. “I liked when you were licking at it.”

Dean studies him for a moment, eyes unreadable, and then he abruptly leans in and kisses Cas.

“A treasure,” he whispers.

Cas feels about seventy-seven stories tall.

He tilts his chin up to kiss Dean this time, and when he pulls back, Dean chases after, though he keeps the kiss soft, nothing more than lips pressed to lips, trading breaths between them.

“Did you have an orgasm?” Cas suddenly remembers to ask, and Dean chuckles.

“Yeah. Around the same time you did.”

“Oh. I’m glad.” Cas hesitates. “Did you . . . did you enjoy biting me?”

He’s not sure why he feels the need to ask, but he does, and he experiences a brief surge of nerves as he waits for the answer.

“I did. You were right,” Dean adds softly. “It helped.”

A peculiar relief fills him, and he smiles.

“I’m glad. I liked it even more than I thought I would,” he adds, in case Dean wants to know, and for a moment, he thinks Dean looks a little sad.

But then he’s smiling again, brushing his nose along Cas’s, scent rich and happy where it lingers around them, and Cas decides he must have misinterpreted it.

“How ‘bout the rest of it?” Dean asks. “You feel good about it?”

Cas nods.

“Very. Having you, um, ‘suck my cock’ — that’s very enjoyable.”

Dean grins.

“Yeah?”

“And the — the swallowing. That was good.”

“I tried,” Dean says, a little impish, and Cas’s stomach flips.

“And your fingers. In me. That was very good, too.”

The impish look turns contemplative.

Cas waits, expecting it to manifest in words, but instead, Dean just kisses him.

“I thought so, too. Thank you for letting me do all of it.”

Which, Dean thanking _him_ for all of that seems ludicrous, but Dean often is, and Cas accepts it.

“Thank you, too.” Cas clears his throat. “May I hold you, now?”

Dean lifts a brow.

“Sure.” He shifts off of Cas, onto his side, and Cas has the brief, irrelevant thought that if he were smaller and slighter — perhaps a little more like Anna — he couldn’t have borne Dean’s weight so comfortably, never mind enjoyed it.

It’s a nice thought, somehow, and it gives him a nice feeling, too.

“I was hoping to spoon, tonight. Except — the other way.”

Dean grins, crooked and sweet.

“I’m definitely not gonna say no to that,” he agrees, and then he’s rolling over, knees drawing up, and throwing an expectant look over his shoulder.

Cas eagerly scoots in behind him, and then puts his arm around Dean’s waist, just like Dean did last time, and he feels warm throughout his entire being when Dean simply sighs and settles back.

Still; it’s hard, in some ways. Cas struggles not to hold too tight, struggles not to make it obvious just how badly he wishes he were holding on for good, how badly he wishes he were holding something that belonged to him and only him.

He’s careful, resting his forehead against the nape of Dean’s neck and slowly breathing him in, a part of him wondering how on earth he’ll be able to fall asleep tonight, residual excitement still coursing through him.

Mostly, though—

He just hopes he’ll get many more nights like this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> Explicit Content Scene One: With Cas lying on his stomach, nightgown pushed up so it still covers Cas's back, Dean performs anilingus on him. He pauses at one point to invite Cas to taste his own slick and Cas is reassured to find it not unpleasant. Cas asks for ‘more,’ eventually, and Dean asks permission to put his finger inside Cas, in addition to his tongue; Cas consents, despite some nerves, and is surprised when he ends up enjoying it. He reaches orgasm, Dean continuing to stimulate him in this fashion for a little while after, and then Dean moves to lie beside him and confirm that Cas enjoyed himself, stating that he also enjoyed himself, after which he asks to hold Cas. He encourages Cas to try fingering himself on his own time, and Cas points out that he can’t lick himself, to which Dean jokes that Cas will have to keep him around to do it. Kissing ensues.
> 
> Explicit Content Scene Two: Cas has a thought where he wonders, if circumstances had been different and he’d met Dean in Sioux Falls, Dean might be an ‘anyone’ that would feel good being mated to Cas. Dean kisses Cas’s neck and chest, then goes on to perform fellatio, though Cas stops him when Dean closes his mouth around Cas’s penis, surprised by the action due to a misunderstanding of the preposition ‘on.’ Dean explains in better terms what he is going to do, indicating that many people with penises appreciate this being done to them, when Cas asks how Dean came up with this idea, and Cas then asks if Dean will want to put his penis in Cas’s mouth. Dean tells him he won’t if Cas doesn’t also want it, and though Cas considers that he enjoyed the feeling of Dean’s fingers in his mouth the night before, he’s not sure he will like it. Dean reiterates that he won’t have to, and suggests the current act is enough ‘new’ for one evening. Cas allows him to proceed, and eventually, Dean asks to touch him in other ways; he fingers Cas while he continues to fellate him, and when Cas warns him that he is approaching orgasm, Dean moves up so he can kiss Cas and they can rub together. Dean tells Cas he wishes he could have a portrait of him in this moment, saying he’s perfect, that he has never met anyone as perfect and never will, concluding with the statement, “It’s just you, okay? Just you.” Cas interprets this as Dean saying Cas is special to him, and tells Dean he is perfect, too. Dean returns to fingering Cas, then bites his shoulder, and Cas reaches orgasm.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: implied physical abuse (details in the notes), minor Anna/Bela, sexual content (*** at the beginning and end, and summary in the notes, though it’s not super explicit), threats/harrassment (details in the notes, scene marked /// at the beginning and end since I think this sort of confrontation is triggering to many, so please take care of yourselves), implied violence (not against any of our characters, details in the notes), please let me know if I missed anything.

Dean wakes the next morning, shaking off muddled flashes of bright, blue white light, his skin tingling from the touch of soft spring rain, its scent saturating the air around him, and when he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is blue.

He sucks in a breath, and just as he realizes _why_ he was dreaming of the rain, Cas smiles.

“Good morning, Dean,” he says, voice still a little rougher from sleep, and Dean’s stomach flips.

“H-hey,” he rasps, quickly rolling onto his side, drinking in the sight of him. Cas’s hair is even more of a disaster than usual, gaze soft and still a little sleepy, and he’s curled up beside Dean, apparently just watching.

“How long’ve you been up?”

One shoulder twitches slightly.

“The dawn was coming in.”

It’s almost full light, now.

“Okay.” Dean blinks, yawning. “How long have you been staring at me?”

Cas looks puzzled.

“The dawn was coming in,” he repeats, and Dean laughs.

Then he wiggles forward, smoothing Cas’s hair — it quickly bounces back into chaos — and brushes his lips against Cas’s.

“Good morning,” he finally returns, and he feels Cas smile, though he pulls away, looking surprised.

“Do you — is it customary, to kiss in the mornings?”

Dean grins.

“It can be, when you share a bed with someone you—" He cuts off, internally wincing at the near-miss. “Someone you — that you kiss other times.”

“Ah.” Cas’s smile widens a little, and then he shifts his hand, loosely gripping the front of Dean’s nightshirt. “We kiss many other times.”

“Yeah. We do,” Dean agrees, wide-awake and giddy despite the late night and the deep sleep of two minutes ago. “There’s morning-breath to deal with, but I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Cas assures him, and then he presses his mouth to Dean’s, fingers tightening in his shirt.

For a moment, part of Dean wonders if he’s still dreaming.

“Dean,” Cas murmurs, and Dean shakes the thought away.

“Mm?”

“I give myself orgasms, sometimes, right after I wake.”

Dean grins against him, and then he rolls over a little more, nudging Cas onto his back.

“Yeah?” he asks, a little breathless, peering down at him. “Something you want me to do for you?”

“Many things,” Cas says seriously, cheeks a little darker than Dean thinks they were a moment ago. “Do you think that would be appropriate?”

Dean pretends to think it over, and Cas’s brow creases.

“And would you be willing?” he adds, eyes flicking between Dean’s.

Dean hums.

“Maybe. I, uh. I’ve got a condition, though.”

Cas quickly nods.

“Of course.” He touches Dean’s cheek, an almost reverent look in his eye. “I’d always want to be fair to you.”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“Yeah? Okay. Then . . . I’ll do whatever you want me to — _if_ we can snuggle afterward, and then I get to bring you breakfast.”

Cas blinks.

And then his whole fucking face lights up, and oh, God, Dean doesn’t know how many mornings he’ll get to spend like this, but he hopes he needs half the kingdom’s hands to count.

“Yes. Alright.” Cas smiles, eyes crinkling, and then he laughs, and then he puts his arms around Dean, sighing. “You make me so happy, Dean.”

Dean’s not expecting it, not the words or the softness in Cas’s amused gaze, in his pleased smile, and his own heart lurches, throat suddenly feeling tight.

“Oh. Uh. Awesome. That — that’s all I want.”

Cas’s eyes turn a little quizzical, and Dean quickly ducks his head, kissing him.

“I’ve never been happier than I am when I’m with you,” he adds, forcing the words out before he can think better of it, and then he keeps on kissing Cas, too afraid to see how he takes it.

To his relief, Cas simply squeezes Dean with his wonderful, ridiculous arms, and enthusiastically kisses back.

“Mmph — also, Dean—" he tries to interject, and a little afraid, Dean pulls away an inch.

“Yeah?”

Cas takes a deep breath.

“I think I want to try, um — ‘sucking your cock.’ If I can.”

Dean freezes, surprised.

And then he laughs, and then he kisses Cas some more, and then he tells him:

“Cas — you can try whatever the hell you want.”

_Technically_ speaking, it’s the worst blowjob Dean’s ever received.

That being said—

Dean comes way too fast, emitting a long string of _totally_ embarrassing noises as he frantically reminds himself that Cas is new to this and if Dean ever wants him to be able to enjoy giving head, he should probably just hold still and let the guy curiously mouth at Dean’s dick to his blessed heart’s content, and right before he’s had enough and gently-but-firmly guides Cas’s head away so he _can_ come—

It takes every ounce of willpower not to blurt out how much he kind of loves him.

Instead, once he catches his breath, Cas’s chin propped on one hand as he watches Dean with flushed cheeks and weirdly contemplative eyes—

He eases Cas onto his back, rucks up his nightgown, and tries, as best he can, to show it.

Cas effectively saw one room at Singer Estate, but leaving it is one of the hardest things he’s ever done.

He doesn’t even put his clothing on until after eight o’ clock in the evening. Dean cleans them up with a cloth and a pitcher of water in the morning, returns to bed to snuggle, and rings for breakfast some indeterminate period of murmured nonsense conversation after. He instructs Cas to perch in the center while he arranges the pillows for optimum comfort and digestive ease — “I’m a pro at eating meals in bed, trust me.” — and then he tucks the blanket around Cas’s hips and fixes his coffee for him and honestly, Cas isn’t sure he’s ever had a better meal.

When it’s done with, Dean dons a grey robe (one Cas is fairly confident now belongs to him) in order to retrieve a selection of games from another room Cas can’t be bothered to care about, and then he rearranges all the pillows and blankets a second time, apparently to facilitate comfortable game playing. A throw gets wrapped around Cas’s shoulders, soft, tassled edges tickling at his arms where they stick out so he can maneuver the game pieces, and Dean stops and simply looks at him for a moment, an expression on his face that makes something inside of Cas feel like it’s trying to take flight.

Cas wants to ask what he’s thinking.

He swallows the words and asks how to play the game instead.

For lunch, Dean somehow summons croissants and cold cuts and apples, a fresh coffee tray included with it, and once again, the bedding is painstakingly moved around and Cas guided into place.

Cas doesn’t mind. He’s never had anyone pay quite this much attention to his comfort — certainly not to the point of obsessively arranging his _pillows_ — and watching Dean carefully put everything into place, pure focus in his gaze, makes a small part of Cas’s soul sing.

_I’ve never been happier than I am when I’m with you._

It’s all Cas can do not to offer to be with Dean always, if that’s really true.

(It is not a selfless impulse.)

Anyway, they while away the day in bed, gameplay ranging from deeply distracted to deeply competitive, and as evening falls, they share another round of baths, side-by-side this time, exchanging quiet, idle conversation.

“When do you think you’ll come back again?” Cas eventually asks, dreading the subject but wanting to know, anyway, and Dean goes silent.

“It’s hard to say,” he finally starts. “But if the council doesn’t have any weird errands for me — I’m hoping to talk ‘em in to letting me come back here before Christmas.”

“That would mean you’d be back in a couple of weeks.”

Dean shrugs.

“Like I said. I’m hoping.”

Cas closes his eyes, torn.

It’s half the time it usually is, and he’s excited, but — it still seems so far away.

He just — he can’t help it. He hates that Dean has to leave in the first place, that Cas has to go home tonight and wake up without him. He knows he’s being unreasonable, but — it doesn’t feel fair .

“I hope so, too,” is all he says. “I think I’m about done with my bath.”

“Same. Dinner should be up in a bit.”

Cas nods.

“Good.” He pauses, conscious of one thing he didn’t get to experience this morning. “Will you, um. Eat me, first?”

There’s an audible intake of breath.

And then Dean bursts out laughing.

“Yeah. I’d love to, Cas.” He turns, catching Cas’s eye and winking. “Think I’d have you for an appetizer every day if I could.”

If _only,_ Cas thinks, and shakes his head.

“I doubt that,” he says dryly. “But if you could tonight, I would appreciate it.”

Cas appreciates it very much — it’s considerably more enjoyable, he finds, when he knows he has nothing to be nervous over — and he dozes against Dean’s chest afterward, waiting for dinner to arrive. Dean strokes his hair all the while, fingers lightly trailing the already-healing mark on his shoulder, and Cas wonders if he’s ever felt more content.

Still, dinner only lasts so long; Cas dresses and collects his things, and by a little past nine o’ clock, he’s standing in front of Mills Park, left with no choice but to say goodbye.

He tries to just take heart in the fact that Dean looks as troubled by it as he is, something soft and bitter in his scent as they stand close, forestalling the inevitable.

After a long moment Dean’s shoulders slump.

“I don’t wanna go,” he says, and Cas nods.

“I don’t want you to go, either.”

“Probably not as badly as I don’t want to,” Dean mutters, expression sour, and Cas smiles.

“This seems like a pointless thing to fight about.”

(Though Cas is confident he’d win.)

Dean huffs a laugh.

“I don’t know. If it means I get to stand here with you for another twenty minutes, I might be willing.”

Cas shakes his head.

“It’s too cold for that,” he says gently, then reaches for one of Dean’s hands, squeezing. “You said . . . I make you happy.”

Dean blinks back at him, surprised, then nods.

“The happiest.”

“Then . . . I’ll see you as soon as you’re able.”

There’s another startled pause, and then—

Dean’s smile seems to light his whole body, hand tightening in Cas’s.

“Yeah. You’re damn right you will. I’ll — I should be at home, the whole time, so — I’ll write you, every day.”

Cas shifts a little closer, smoothing his other hand over Dean’s jacket and giving a satisfied nod.

“Good. I love receiving your letters. I reread them often.”

“You — seriously? Dude, they don’t say anything.”

“They say you’re well, and that you’ll be returning soon,” Cas counters. “That’s valuable, to me.”

Dean ducks his chin, forehead brushing Cas’s, and Cas closes his eyes, discreetly breathing him in, if only because it will be some time before he has another chance.

“Is it weird that I feel shitty about having to sleep without you?”

“Possibly. I don’t really care if it is,” Cas adds, seeing no point in dissembling. “I’m glad I’ll at least have your portrait, though.”

He hears Dean swallow.

“You would, too, then? Sleep with me again, I mean.”

Cas almost laughs.

He’d sleep with Dean every night, if only he could.

“Yes,” he says simply. “It would be a privilege.”

“But . . . you’d wanna go back to your own bed, eventually. Right?”

Cas hesitates.

And then he shifts, lifting his chin and lightly touching his lips to Dean’s.

“Does it matter? Come back to me soon, Dean.” He kisses him again. “I’ll miss you.”

Dean’s quiet a moment, but then he gives a small nod and kisses back.

“I’ll miss you, too, Cas.”

And then he’s getting in the carriage and driving away and Cas just clutches his bag, with the portrait roll and the grey robe and a blue nightgown that made him feel like something a little bit more than human, and tries not to think about what it would be like if he were going with him.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” Susan is singing, crouched by the armchair next to the bookcase when Cas enters the parlor, and Lucy clucks her tongue, though she keeps on furiously knitting on the settee.

“Don’t badger the poor thing. She’s still frightened.”

Cas squints at the armchair.

“What are you all talking about?”

Max waves at him from the puzzle table, looking excited.

“Lucy found a kitten, and Alex said we could keep it. Did you have a nice time with the prince?”

“I had a wonderful time,” Cas says, although — a _kitten_.

The last time he played with a kitten, he was seventeen and entertaining a regular visitor to the garden, though Mother eventually caught him sneaking scraps and switched the back of his legs over it. Fortunately, Anna managed to catch it and convince a friend to take it in, but Cas never saw it again.

He leaves his bag by the doorway, curiously drifting toward the armchair.

“What’s its name?”

Lucy sighs.

“Alex said we have to put up notices before we can name her, just in case.” She sniffs. “She’s in terrible condition, though. I can’t imagine anyone was taking care of her.”

“She could have been lost for a long time,” Susan points out, though given the way she smiles at the shadow beneath the chair, Cas somehow doubts she’ll be pleased to part with the cat, should any owners turn up.

“Perhaps,” Lucy mutters. “At any rate — we’ll fix her up as best we can, for as long as we can.”

“I think Lucy’s already halfway through a blanket for her,” Susan informs him, then ducks her head back down, cooing. “Come out into the light, sweetie. There are laps to sit on and people to be pet by. And Cas is going to tell us all about the things the prince did to him!”

Cas frowns at her.

“No, I’m not.”

She grins.

“So he _did_ do things to you!”

“Well, yes, and they were very nice, but they’re personal, Susan.”

She hums, scooting a little closer and holding out a finger.

“He’s no fun, is he, Mr. Snuggles?”

Lucy makes a choked noise.

“She’s a baby girl, you heathen! You can’t name her Mr. Snuggles!”

“She’s a _cat_ , Lucy, and she’d be an adorable Mr. Snuggles. Why can’t I?”

“Because you absolutely can’t.” Lucy sniffs. “If we get to keep her, I’m calling her Katherine, after my poor mother, God rest her soul.”

“I hope she doesn’t catch plague,” Anna mutters, and Cas suppresses a sigh.

He should _probably_ tell Anna Dean lied, but doing so seems somehow embarrassing, at this point.

“Katherine,” Susan muses. “What a pretty name! It’s a bit of a mouthful, though. She’ll need a nickname.”

“Well,” Lucy starts, suspicious. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

“Say, what was your mother’s nickname?”

“Oh, well, she was always Kat, or Kitty,” Lucy answers readily, then freezes. “Oh. But—"

“No, no, no, I like it,” Susan interjects quickly. “We could even call her Kitty-Kat. Well done, Lucy!”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Lucy protests. “We can’t—"

“Come on, Kitty-Kat,” Susan croons, heedless of Lucy’s distress. “Come out and play with us.”

There’s a small movement beneath the chair, light catching on whiskers, and then a tiny, pink nose butts against Susan’s fingertip.

“Ooh, I think she likes it!”

Cas hears Max giggle at the table.

“We’ll talk in a week,” Lucy mutters, then sighs, setting aside her knitting. “It’s time to feed her again. See if you can coax her out.”

Susan winks at Cas, then reaches under the armchair.

“Here, Kitty. Dinnertime. Lucy’s making you a nice, soft blanket to sleep on, too.”

She gently nudges until the kitten is sliding into the light, blinking and stretching her mouth in a soft, quiet _meow_.

“Oh,” Cas utters, heart squeezing as he takes in its unevenly tufted, skinny black form, and Susan chuckles.

“It’s powerful magic,” she agrees, and Lucy huffs from the door.

“Magic nothing. All that nonsense about black cats is just cruel superstition. She’s as pure as any of God’s creations, I’m sure.”

Susan shakes her head.

“Of course, Lucy,” she says soothingly, stroking a finger behind the kitten’s ear and eliciting another tiny sound. “I was speaking metaphorically.”

“If you say so,” Lucy mutters, then ducks out to fetch the cat’s dinner.

Cas moves to sit on the floor, settling criss-cross as he inspects it more closely, and it turns, cocking its head as it blinks its big eyes at him and meows a little louder.

“She looks half-starved,” he comments sadly, though even so — she’s _adorable_.

“Lucy’s been hand-feeding her every two hours.” Susan sighs. “I _think_ she’ll make it; honestly, when Lucy brought her in this morning, I thought she was already dead. She’s looking much better.”

Cas holds out a finger, and the kitten briefly tries to sniff it, nose cold against his skin, before it meows again and wobbles onto its side, curling up a little.

“Oh, dear,” he sighs, and Susan nods.

“ _Exactly_ .”

Lucy returns shortly after, gingerly scooping the suddenly very sleepy-looking kitten into her hold, and once she’s back on the settee, Susan stands, offering Cas a hand.

It does him little good, but he pretends anyway, and she gives him a knowing look.

“So. About these things his highness did to you.”

“What about them?” he asks mildly, following her to the puzzle table.

“You won’t even give us a hint?”

“I’m not sure how it’s of interest to you,” he points out, sincere, and she huffs.

“Let me live vicariously, Castiel!” she complains, and Cas shakes his head.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking. Although,” he adds, now that she has him thinking about it. “I do have a question.”

“I can certainly try to answer it,” she agrees, patting Max’s head as she takes the seat beside her. “What is it?”

Max gives him a curious look, too, and Cas hesitates, not sure how to phrase it.

“Is it . . . is it usual, for an alpha to want to put his mouth places?”

Susan blinks.

“Huh. Well. I’m not sure. What places, exactly, does he want to put it?”

For some reason, Max snorts, shaking her head slightly, but Cas decides to disregard it.

“Well — Dean seems happy to put his mouth just about _anywhere.”_

Susan takes a deep breath, looking extremely thoughtful.

“Hm. I see. Well, I’m hardly an expert, but — I can tell you that alphas who are willing to put their mouths ‘anywhere’ are considered _very_ attractive prospects, assuming they don’t have any serious flaws.”

“Oh.” Cas smiles. “That makes sense. It _is_ very pleasant — for me, at least.”

“It’s not nice to brag,” Susan chides, though she looks amused, and Cas simply shrugs.

It’s a little worrisome — Dean’s flaws seem increasingly irrelevant as time passes, however difficult they may have made Cas’s life in the past — but Cas just tries to reassure himself that none of it is really a cause for concern. He supposes there’s still the princess of Edgewater to worry about, in case the council decides that route is worth their while, but _Dean_ at least seemed confident that he would never be able to mate.

Whether anyone finds him an attractive prospect shouldn’t matter, should it?

And even if, someday, it does _—_

Well, Dean is coming back in a couple weeks’ time, and Cas makes him _happy_ , and for now . . .

Worrying would just be pointless.

Pillowcases and finally-sanctioned nightgown or not, the first night back is absolute _hell._ Dean doesn’t get to sleep until two in the morning, and he’s up at dawn, restless and disgruntled and groggy from mostly-forgotten but almost certainly shitty dreams.

The more he sees of Cas, the more he feels like the portrait he has is hopelessly spare and inaccurate.

He’s pretty sure a full-blown painting would be equally dissatisfying, though, so he grimaces at it while he drinks his coffee and tries to remind himself that he’ll be going back soon.

(Is it going to be like this every time? Is it just because they spent the night together? Is it going to get better — or is it going to get _worse_?)

Anyway, he spends the first few days catching up on correspondence and touching base with some of the councilmembers, although he doubts anything will be in order before the New Year, and by the time he’s summoned for one of the meetings, he has a decent report prepared and he’s ready to ask about making one last trip before Christmas.

He doesn’t quite get the chance.

“So, regarding his highness’s heirs—" George begins, shuffling papers around, and Dean’s stomach drops, mouth going dry. “We’ve made excellent progress narrowing down candidates, but I have this week received a letter from Edgewater confirming their interest in discussing an alternative arrangement. Obviously, that is not without its downsides, but there’s been a surprising amount of public support for it, and unlike most alliances, this could potentially benefit us in significant and lasting ways. We should certainly discuss it.”

Personally, Dean doesn’t see how that could benefit _any_ of them, at all, for any length of time, but he is perhaps a little biased.

“We certainly should,” John agrees, and Dean’s stomach moves a little further toward his shoes. “ _However_ _—_ it can wait. Go ahead and tell them we’ll discuss it at a future date.”

Silence falls, and Dean tries not to look too hopeful as he stares at his dad.

“I assumed we were planning to make a decision by the end of the year,” Tara says slowly. “We’ve been delayed, as it is.”

“Fair, but _—_ Dean’s in the middle of a project, right now. It’s going to have to wait.”

She just looks at him for a moment, incredulous.

“His highness would have already welcomed an heir by now, if he were at all cooperative. This is urgent.”

John raises his brows.

“Is it? I’m in good health. Dean’s in good health. Hell, _Sam’s_ in good health. We’re not at war. They don’t take that long to make, Tara, I’m sure it can wait another few months.”

Dean holds his breath. He swears to God, he could _kiss_ his father right now.

Tara narrows her eyes.

“He turns twenty-six in January.”

“So? Technically, I was twenty six when _he_ was born. It’s not like he’s behind.”

She presses her lips together, but John simply stares back, even, and Dean had no _idea_ his dad was that invested in this whole safe house business, but damn it, Dean’s more determined than ever to do him proud.

“Fine. We’ll give him a few months. But it’s not unreasonable to expect one by end of next year.”

John shrugs.

“We’ll talk. Table the matter for now, George. Tell Edgewater the prince is occupied.”

Dean just barely doesn’t sag in relief. Yeah, they’re just tabling the matter _for now,_ and even Dean recognizes that he kind of has to have heirs at some point, but whatever. He’ll deal it with later.

For now, he just — he needs more time with Cas, just like this. Just like they are.

“Speaking of,” his father continues. “If you have more business in Sioux Falls before January, I’d like you to finish it before Christmas. I expect you to be home through the New Year.”

Dean straightens up.

“Oh, that’s true,” he agrees. “Uh. Maybe I better head out there in about a week or so, then? Just to be sure?”

“What could you _possibly_ need to do before the New Year?” George demands, clearly suspicious, and Dean swallows.

“Uh. I have some questions about how they handle things when Winter really starts, and — there’s kind of a sticky issue as far as women with kids goes? I want to consult with local enforcement, see if there’s anything we can do to facilitate that without . . . legal issues. Might as well do it sooner rather than later, right?”

“Sounds good,” John says hastily, before George can object. “Get it done and get home. Don’t forget Hearings on the twentieth.”

Dean makes a face, at which George looks even more affronted, then quickly nods.

“Absolutely, your Majesty. I should be back with time to spare.”

Anyway, as soon as they close the meeting, Dean practically runs back to his room to write a letter letting Cas know.

One week. And sure, Dean’ll have to come back and just hope nobody shows up with any weird proposals this time, but . . .

For a little while, at least? He has time.

Miss Talbot arrives the same day Cas’s letter from Dean informs him that he’ll be returning sooner than anticipated, and Cas’s excitement sadly ends up dampened.

The elderly Mrs. Hampton is rail-thin and a little bruised, though she twinkles readily and fixates on Lucy’s kitten before any real introductions can even be made, but that isn’t ultimately what concerns him (she’s at Mills Park, after all; despite his initial experience, Cas has learned to have a little faith).

What _really_ concerns him is the palpably ominous atmosphere between Anna and Miss Talbot.

“Lucy will see Mrs. Hampton to her room when they’re done playing with the kitten,” Anna informs her, then gives the door an expectant look.

Miss Talbot narrows her eyes.

“And mine?” she asks.

Anna tilts her head slightly.

“I can recommend an inn in town.”

Miss Talbot smiles, tight and unfriendly.

“How strange. Clearly, you must have gotten my letter, if you have a room prepared for Mrs. Hampton.”

“I did,” Anna agrees. “Sadly — we haven’t any space for you.”

“Really.”

Anna looks thoughtful.

“Well . . . there’s always the sofa in the parlor, again?”

Miss Talbot gives her a disbelieving look.

“Are you _joking_?”

“If we have no spare beds, we have no spare beds,” Anna reasons mildly, and Miss Talbot narrows her eyes.

“And no one is willing to share?”

At that, Lucy glances over her shoulder.

“Oh, well, I cou—"

“No,” Anna interjects evenly. “No one is.”

“Really?” Miss Talbot counters. “Because I certainly seem to recall _you_ offering at one point.”

Anna falls silent, turning pale.

And then, after a long, fraught moment:

“And I seem to recall you declining, in rather absolute terms.” She pauses. “But trust me, Miss Talbot. I won’t be offering again.”

With that, she turns and heads for the stairs.

Behind her, Miss Talbot just sighs and presses her palm to her forehead.

“Right. That went well.”

Mrs. Hampton is still murmuring happy-sounding pleasantries to the kitten, but Lucy’s head is twisted half-around, just looking between Miss Talbot and the staircase, her eyes wide.

“Good Lord,” she breathes. “Susan . . . Susan was _right._ ”

Cas gives her a puzzled look, then glances back to Miss Talbot.

“Excuse me,” is all he says, and then he starts up the stairs after Anna.

Anna smells upset when she opens the door, though Cas is less surprised than confused.

“Are you going to be alright?” he asks, and she sighs.

“Yes. Sorry.”

He hesitates.

“Do you want to talk about it? I don’t think I understand what happened.”

“Do any of us?” she mutters, then shakes her head. “It’s fine. Just — as I’m sure you heard, I once offered to spend the night with her. The way you and Dean did, last time.”

Cas lifts his brows, suddenly remembering something Charlie was supposed to explain to him.

“But how do—" he starts, and Anna narrows her eyes.

He clears his throat.

“Ah. And . . . that makes things awkward, now?”

“Yes and no. A little, but — mostly, we just — we don’t get along.” Anna looks to the side. “We’re not suited to one another. If we were men, we’d probably have met for a dawn appointment, by now.”

“Oh. That’s unfortunate.” The others speak so highly of Miss Talbot, it seems like a shame. “Is it really so bad if she only stays briefly?”

Anna frowns at him, and for a long moment, she says nothing.

Then she sighs.

“No. But — it’s not just me being petty. She can be _incredibly_ difficult, and if anything, I’d say it amuses her. My impulse is always to be difficult back.” She huffs. “But no. As long as we steer clear of one another — it’s probably fine, if she stays.”

Before Cas can comment, she starts forward, out into the hall.

“Alright. Let’s go tell her,” she mutters, smoothing the front of her skirt, and Cas follows her to the stairs.

Miss Talbot is gone when they reach the parlor, though.

“She left this,” Lucy explains, wide-eyed, and offers her a slip of paper.

His sister’s lips twitch downward as she takes it. Cas hovers close, waiting, and after a moment, she takes a deep breath.

“She says she’s sorry and she won’t trouble me with her presence any more than necessary,” Anna announces.

And then she crumples the note up and hurls it into the fire.

“It all makes sense now,” Lucy mutters to him, watching it burn, but Cas, for his part, doesn’t get it at all.

Dean’s been gone a little over a week, letters arriving daily, just as he promised, when the one Cas has eagerly been waiting for finally reaches him.

_Anyway, this’ll be the last letter till I see you; I leave in two days, and I should make it there before the next one would._

And according to the date at the top _—_

That means Dean should arrive tomorrow.

Cas is surprised he doesn’t burst from excitement.

As it is, he wakes early, anticipation instant and nearly overwhelming, and he startles Lucy very badly when he immediately heads downstairs to prepare his coffee. She’s feeding Katherine, wet food on the tip of her finger and a lone candle flickering a few feet away in its holder, and she nearly knocks it over when he bids her good morning.

“Good heavens, Castiel,” she hisses, hand to her chest. “Is it so hard to make _noise_ when you walk?”

Cas gives her an apologetic look.

“I didn’t want to wake anyone.”

“Well, you’re too far in the other direction!” she insists. “You nearly frightened me to _death_.”

“Sorry, Lucy.” He hesitates, then goes to crouch beside her. “How is she?”

“Good.” Lucy sniffs. “Coming along.”

“I think she looks bigger than when she got here,” he offers, and Lucy’s eyes soften.

“I thought so, too.” She yawns. “Not but what it isn’t a nuisance, waking up all through the night.”

Cas smiles.

“I like to think you’ll find it worth it.” He gently rubs behind its ear with one finger. “You’ve done well.”

She hums.

“I’ve certainly tried.”

“Are you going back to bed, or would you like me to make you a cup of tea?”

“Oh, would you? I’m on the morning shift. Make it black, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” He rises, turning and heading toward the stove. “One sugar and plenty of cream?”

“If you would. What are you doing up so early, anyway?”

“Ah.” Cas smiles, picking up the kettle. “Dean is coming today.”

“So soon?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.” Lucy’s quiet for a few moments. “Do you suppose . . .”

He carries the kettle to the tap, giving her a questioning look.

“Oh, never mind,” she huffs, turning back to Katherine. “Just because Susan’s right about one thing doesn’t mean the rest of her ideas are any less silly.”

“Perhaps not. I don’t think her ideas are silly.” He pauses. “Though I don’t know what you’re talking about, either.”

Lucy waves a hand.

“Neither do I, Castiel,” she sighs. “Neither do I. I suppose you ought to just enjoy yourself, if you can.”

At that, he smiles.

“Yes. I think so, too.”

Lucy finishes feeding Katherine, tucking her into the soft, very prettily knitted white blanket, and when the tea and coffee are done, they sit and enjoy the early sunrise until the morning shift comes in.

Susan’s on the morning and evening shifts, but she’s not due at the soap company today, and since Cas has been up for hours, excitement giving him a restless energy he’s struggling to endure, they decide to recruit Max and go run errands after lunch.

Cas is going to buy pie ingredients and flowers (he’ll have to ask Eloise to make sure they don’t mean anything they shouldn’t), and then he is — in Susan’s words — going to ‘stage a seduction.’

Cas wouldn’t call it _that —_ the flowers are to make Dean smile, and the pie ingredients are for already-promised lessons, even if Cas can’t quite forget a conversation in which it was suggested they may result in an orgasm — but Susan is entertained and Cas is eager to greet Dean with _something_ special, and he’s not really concerned with what anyone decides to call it.

Anyway, Max quickly slides a book over something on the table when they enter the parlor, and Susan stops, lifting her brows.

“Hi,” Max says awkwardly, blinking back at them, and after a beat, Susan grins.

Then she darts forward, fingers wiggling.

“Ohhh? What have you got there?”

“Nothing. I’m just — I was reading.”

“With a pen in your hand?”

“I was taking notes,” Max insists, laying her arms protectively over the book on top, and Susan sinks into the chair catty-corner to her, propping her chin on her hand.

“What _kind_ of notes?”

“About . . . bread recipes.”

Susan gives her a sly look.

“Bread. That’s a word for it.”

Max looks down.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean you _met_ someone, didn’t you? And you’re writing him a letter!” Susan straightens, gleefully clapping her hands together. “If you show me, I’ll give you advice.”

Max purses her lips.

“It’s not a letter.”

“What else would you be so embarrassed about?”

“I’m not embarrassed,” she insists. “I’m just . . .”

She hesitates, then reluctantly slides the book away. Beneath it, there’s an open sketchbook, carefully drawn boxes covering some of the page, drawings inside.

“Billie let me have it. I’m trying to draw a story,” she mumbles. “Like the ones she loans me.”

Susan peers at it with no less interest, eyes wide.

“Wow! I didn’t know you could draw.”

“Dad used to bring me scrap parchment from work, and I’d make pictures for my mother. Though I’m not sure I _can_ draw,” Max adds, giving the page a frustrated look. “But I thought — I could try. Just — just for fun.”

“Well, if entertaining yourself isn’t a good reason to try something, I don’t know what is,” Susan laughs, reaching over and patting Max’s back. “I bet it’ll be fantastic. Do you want to come in to town with Cas and I, or are you doing this today?”

“I was already at Cooke’s this morning,” Max admits. “I hope you have fun, though.”

“Sneaky!” Susan shakes her head. “Well, alright. I guess it’s just me and—"

She’s interrupted by a loud, firm knock at the front door, and Cas instinctively turns, surprised.

“Is that . . .” she starts, and Cas frowns.

“No. That would mean he left Lawrence in the middle of the night.”

She bolts out of the chair, expression gleeful.

“I’ll bet you a soft pretzel from the bakery he did exactly that!”

She neatly darts past him, Max curiously rising from the table behind her, and Cas hastens to follow.

She’s wrong, of course.

Dean’s never arrived this early. What would be the point? He’d just be exhausted when he got here, assuming he arrived at all. It’s probably just a message from town.

But Susan throws open the door, practically bouncing on her feet, and on the step _—_

Dean straightens, smiling.

“Oh, hey, Susan. Is, uh. Is Cas at work or—"

Cas clears his throat, moving to stand behind her, and Dean’s gaze jerks to him, eyes lighting up.

Which — it’s wonderful. The look on his face is wonderful. Cas suddenly doesn’t understand how he ever survived, never having someone look at him like this.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean’s smile widens, warmth and joy seeming to radiate from him, and Cas discreetly takes hold of the door handle for support.

_Wonderful_.

“Hey, Cas.”

“You must have left early.”

Dean grins.

“Maybe I was hoping I’d fall asleep and get carried somewhere again.”

“Dean.”

“Cas,” Dean returns, mock-serious. “C’mon. I was too excited to sleep, anyway. I figured I might as well.”

“Oh.” Cas can’t quite fight a smile, Dean’s irresponsibility aside. “I had difficulty, as well. Just as long as you didn’t drive tired.”

“Wide-awake,” Dean promises, and for a moment, they just smile at one another.

Then Susan coughs.

“So! Castiel was just about to go into town and run some errands, but everyone here is just so busy, there’s no one to accompany him.”

Cas blinks, finally looking away from Dean.

“But—"

“And you know, he hates going into town without anyone to use as a crowd buffer. I don’t suppose . . .?”

Cas frowns at her, but Dean quickly nods.

“Yeah, sure. Of course. I’d love to.”

Susan beams, reaching for Cas’s arm and tugging.

“Great! Well, he’s all yours, then. Enjoy!”

Cas stumbles forward, still bewildered by the lie, and Dean quickly reaches out to steady him.

(Dean has very nice hands, and Cas feels significantly less steady with one of them on him, though he does end up upright.)

“While you’re out, though,” Susan adds, insistently nudging Cas forward, already beginning to shut the door. “Get me a soft pretzel, would you?”

Understanding dawns.

She grins at him, and then cheerfully shuts the door behind him.

“There a reason she wanted you out?” Dean asks, giving it a curious look, and Cas shakes his head, sighing.

“Susan is like this. Don’t mind it.”

“Dude, why would I mind it?” Dean grins. “I don’t even have to wait to get you all to myself this time.”

_You can have me all to yourself any time,_ Cas almost says, but he knows Dean is referring to the times he comes while Cas is at work, and there’s not a lot he can do about that.

“True,” he agrees, then leans back against door, studying Dean. “We’re going to town to buy pie ingredients, by the way.”

Dean perks up.

“You’re making a pie?”

“ _We_ are,” Cas corrects. “I believe I promised you pie lessons.”

Dean blinks.

Then his tongue darts out, wetting his lower lip.

“And . . . would those be the pie lessons I’m supposed to pay for?”

Cas shrugs.

“If you want.” He pauses. “If we hurry back, we can use the kitchen before the dinner shift needs it. I could give you one today.”

“Yeah?” Dean rubs his chin. “Okay. A pie lesson does sound pretty good.”

Cas just looks at him for a moment.

And then he smiles.

“Then we should go.”

Dean nods, stepping closer.

“Sure. But — really quick, before we do—"

Cas isn’t even surprised when Dean presses up against him and kisses him; nor is he surprised when it turns out not to be quick at all.

He doesn’t mind. They _should_ hurry, but _—_

Cas thinks they have time.

“Oh! Your highness! Nice to see you back so soon!”

The woman from last time beams at him, looking inordinately pleased, and although the Northern brat looks way less impressed beside her, Dean ignores it.

He’s taking his time, damn it. He’s doing this right.

Or at least, the best way he knows how.

“Nice to be here,” he returns easily, and she gives him a sly look.

“I’ll bet it is,” she murmurs. “You know, when the proclamations reached us, I thought that was the best news we’d get all year, but I’m beginning to think I’ll get word of something even better before the year is out.”

She punctuates this with a meaningful wink, confidence absolute, and Dean’s stomach sort of lands in his boots.

He can see Cas’s head tilt beside him, the kid staring him down across the counter.

He has no idea what to say.

“I — uh. I . . .”

She throws back her head and laughs.

“Alright, I won’t tease you. What can we do for you today?”

Cas asks for Susan’s pretzel, apparently not confused enough to insist on an explanation, and Dean awkwardly looks at the counter, trying to pretend the kid isn’t boring judgmental holes in the side of his face.

It’s none of his fucking business. It’s not _anyone’s_ business, except for his and Cas’s. He’s not stupid; he knows what it kind of looks like, him coming down here all the time and them strolling through town arm-in-arm and making eyes at each other, and he knows she — and probably some other people — are expecting a wedding announcement, but — that’s not his fault. He’s working with what he has, here, and all of that is way over Cas’s head, besides and regardless of what conclusions people want to jump to-

This isn’t about them. He and Cas are figuring it out, _both_ of them. This isn’t — he’s not leading Cas on, even if Alfalfamandriel clearly has opinions about it. If — and that’s still a big if — by some miracle Cas _does_ want him . . . he’s known since day one that Dean can’t mate or get married. If anything, Cas knows better than _all_ of these people, which means he knows not to have expectations.

Normal rules don’t apply here, and while he’s sorry if that’s disappointing to the general public — it is what it is.

All he can do is his best, and hope that it’s enough.

Isn’t it?

Cas thanks them and nudges Dean with his shoulder, nodding toward the door, and Dean quickly shifts his hold on their bag of pie ingredients and starts walking, waving mechanically to the pair behind him.

“We should have plenty of time,” Cas informs him as they step out onto the street, and Dean manages a small smile.

“For a pie lesson.”

Cas gives him a look.

“Well, yes. It doesn’t matter if they’re in the kitchen once we’ve left for the orgasm.”

Dean snorts, smile feeling a little easier.

“Of course,” he says. “What was I thinking?”

“Probably about the orgasm,” Cas supplies. “They make me less sensible, too.”

Dean stops dead in his tracks, stunned _—_ and then he dissolves into giggles. Cas smiles back, obviously pleased, and you know what?

Fuck popular opinion.

Whatever this is, wherever it’s going — Dean loves it.

And he has every intention of seeing it through.

Dean accidentally puts too much water in the dough, and clumps stick to the counter, despite the generous layer of flour Cas puts down.

Cas gravely informs him they’ll almost certainly need a second lesson, after all, and it makes Dean laugh. He puts his sticky hands on Cas’s nice grey waistcoat and kisses him, and when Cas remembers to complain, he kisses him harder.

Cas forgets again.

Anyway, the pie is filled, lattice laid over the top with a care Cas isn’t the least bit surprised over, and abandoned to the judgment of the oven by three o’ clock. Dean turns to face him afterward, brows raised.

“So. What do we do while we wait?”

Cas’s waistcoat is a mess, and Dean’s hands are clean now, anyway, so he knows what he’d _like_ to do, but the trouble lies, as it always does, in asking.

“What would you like to do?”

Dean shrugs.

“We could look for a snack.”

“Are you hungry?”

He shrugs again.

“Not necessarily.”

“Ah.”

“We could see what’s happening in the parlor.”

“If you’d like,” Cas agrees, curious over the glint in his eye.

“We could also just make out some more.”

“Make out,” Cas repeats, and Dean smiles.

“Kiss a bunch.”

“Oh.” Cas shifts close, fingers automatically reaching for Dean’s cravat. He wonders if he’s allowed to ask Dean to just not wear one when they’re not in town. “That would probably be best.”

Fortunately, Dean doesn’t try to ask why he thinks so.

Instead, he simply grins, maneuvers Cas against the counter, and seals their mouths together.

They don’t stay there long. The pie has been in the oven no more than ten minutes before Dean is withdrawing, breaths harsh, hands firmly pulling Cas’s off of him.

“But—" Cas starts to protest, but then Dean starts tugging him forward, swiftly guiding him to the pantry, and Cas quiets. Dean closes the door behind them, shutting them in the dark, and turns to face Cas.

The good kind of chill strokes down Cas’s spine, and he sucks in a breath.

“Dean?”

Dean presses back in, warm in front of him, breath mingling with Cas’s.

“Yeah?”

“What are we doing in here?”

“Something we shouldn’t,” Dean informs him, and then he starts kissing him again, and since it’s dark and no one can see them, Cas decides pulling Dean’s shirt free and putting his hands under it is probably an acceptable response.

Dean groans against him, the hands on Cas’s hips slipping slightly, squeezing a little lower down, and Cas’s breath hitches.

And since it _is_ dark, and they _are_ out of view—

“Dean,” he whispers. “May I please have an orgasm?”

He can feel Dean grin against his lips.

“Oh, Cas. You can have anything you want.”

_Would that it were so_ , Cas thinks, but then Dean’s dropping to his knees and undoing Cas’s trousers, mouthing hotly over the front of his drawers once they’re open, and Cas leans back against the wall with a gasp, thoughts vanishing.

Greed is unbecoming, Cas decides, and this—

If this is what he gets, he’s certainly not going to complain.

“Ah. It’s hot and wet, the way you like it,” Cas announces, pleased when he lifts a slice of pie out of the dish and it steams and dribbles, cranberries red and glistening as the filling struggles to hold shape.

Dean chokes.

“Y-yeah. I really do. Awesome.”

Cas eases it onto the plate, pushing it toward Dean before serving himself.

“Alright,” Dean mutters. “Let’s see how I did.”

They chew in silence for a moment, and then Dean nods, swallowing.

“Crust is gluey.”

“You added too much water,” Cas says apologetically, and Dean laughs.

“I did. You distracted me.”

Cas squints.

“I did no such thing.”

“You were staring at me,” Dean protests. “Like you were thinking about things.”

Cas looks at the pie, suddenly feeling awkward, because he remembers what he was thinking about, watching Dean’s hands work the dough, sleeves rolled up to bare his forearms, and he wonders if Dean somehow knew.

“Well. I think it’s very good, anyway.”

Dean cuts off another bite, and in his peripheral, Cas thinks he sees him smile.

“You gonna tell me what you were thinking about?”

Cas glances up, eyeing Dean through his lashes.

“So you don’t know.”

“I’m pretty sure I know what _kinds_ of things. But I’m not a mind reader.”

“Thankfully,” Cas mutters, and Dean chuckles. “I was watching your hands. And your arms.”

“And?” Dean presses, and Cas sighs.

“I was thinking about you touching me.”

Dean’s fork pauses near his mouth.

“Cas.”

Cas makes a face.

“Last time, when you licked me — ate me? Your hands, they — you, um, handled my posterior. And the back of my thighs. It was pleasant.”

“Pleasant,” Dean echoes, chewing thoughtfully. “Just pleasant?”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“Dean. Finish chewing before you speak.”

Dean snorts, swallowing the bite.

“Subject change, much?”

“ _Anyway,_ ” Cas says. “It _was_ pleasant.”

“Right, but _how_ pleasant? Is this a regular ‘feels good’ pleasant, or a beg-for-more kind of pleasant?”

Cas huffs.

“If I have to beg, that probably means you don’t want to do it, which means we shouldn’t.”

“Mm.” Dean cocks his head, eyeing him speculatively. “Not necessarily.”

Cas _hates_ it when Dean gets like this, vague and cryptic and clearly alluding to things Cas doesn’t know, not to mention _amused_ by the confusion he causes

He truly, absolutely _hates_ it.

“Finish your pie, Dean.”

Dean smirks.

“My slice,” he corrects. “Eating the whole pie would be a bad idea.”

Cas frowns.

“Why?”

“Because,” Dean says simply. “Then I won’t have room for dessert.”

He sticks the next bite in his mouth, for some reason withdrawing the fork very slowly, mouth closed tight around the tines and cheeks hollowing as he apparently sucks it clean. A wet, slurping sound echoes across the table when it finally slips free, and Dean lets out a deep, appreciative noise, almost like a moan.

***

Cas just stares at his mouth for a moment, skin suddenly hot as he thinks about what happened in the pantry, at the way Dean stayed on his knees the whole time, laced his fingers with Cas’s and swallowed again and again and _again,_ until what he was swallowing was Cas’s release, heedless of Cas’s weakly cried warnings.

Cas couldn’t believe that, that he’d let Cas spill into his mouth like that, that he wouldn’t spit it out, simply took it down and kept licking and sucking until Cas had to push his head away from sensitivity.

Even harder to believe was how much Cas had _liked_ it, Dean’s eyes glinting up at him through his lashes, only the barest of light slipping in through the crack beneath the door. He’d licked his lips after Cas had pulled a hand free and nudged his head aside, groaning out a protest, and Cas had wished for more light, wished he could see how flushed and disheveled Dean had looked as he slowly drew the back of his hand across his full, swollen lips and smiled in the darkness.

“Isn’t this dessert?” Cas croaks out in the present, suddenly wondering if that’s something people would _only_ do in the shelter of darkness, or if they could do it again in his room, in the daylight, maybe even with Cas’s back pressed to the window, afternoon sun streaming in around him and lighting Dean’s face so Cas could see it all happen.

Dean just laughs, low and dark, and saws off another bite.

(The pastry really was gluey.)

“No, Cas,” he says. “It isn’t.”

Dessert, Cas is informed sometime later, stripped down to his shirt and laid otherwise bare on his stomach, _two_ pillows stacked beneath himself this time and leaving him even more thrillingly — and embarrassingly — exposed in the air, is not food, tonight.

Dessert, according to Dean, is him.

Dean massages the flesh of his rear, palms firm as they press and pull and utterly ignore the mess of slick gathering in the dip, and then he moves to Cas’s thighs, stroking and squeezing and generally making Cas feel like the whole entire world has narrowed to that point of contact, just shy of painful as Cas’s muscles twitch and flex beneath his hands.

It is _exactly_ what Cas had wanted.

“Good, Dean,” he groans. “That’s — that’s very good, thank you.”

Behind him, Dean laughs, and then to Cas’s surprise, he feels Dean’s lips against one buttock, a soft press against the skin.

He huffs a laugh in return, not expecting it.

“Dean.”

“What?”

“Are you — is it regular, to kiss my posterior?”

“What? Of course it’s regular, Cas. It’s — it’s affectionate.” Dean kisses it again, and Cas grins into his pillow, despite his slight embarrassment. “This is my favorite posterior in the kingdom.”

His grin fades slightly.

“That implies you have others that you like,” he says, before he can think better of it, but _—_

“Nope,” Dean answers readily. “Trust me, yours is the only ass I ever think about anymore.”

He kisses the other side, a wet, ticklish smack, as if for emphasis, and Cas’s unease disappears, another laugh bubbling out of him.

“You — you’re so bizarre, Dean,” he tells him, and then adds, because he can’t help himself, “I like you so much.”

Dean’s quiet for a moment, fingers back to stroking Cas’s thighs.

“Yeah? Would you, uh. Would you say I’m _your_ favorite ass in the kingdom?”

Cas twists, looking over his shoulder as best he can, squinting.

“You mean the owner of my favorite — ass?”

Dean shrugs.

“No, not really. I mean your favorite ass.”

Cas blinks, and then he rolls his eyes, turning away again.

“You’re not an ass, Dean.” He pauses. “But you are my favorite.”

“Oh.”

“And — I do like your, um, actual ass.”

“Oh?”

“But I want you to have me for dessert now.”

Dean lets out a choked laugh.

And then his hands tighten on Cas’s thighs, firmly pulling them wider apart — Cas swallows an undignified noise — and he leans in, breath hot against Cas’s slick, sensitive skin.

Cas’s whole body pulls tight.

“You’re my favorite, too,” he whispers, and Cas can feel the words puff softly against him.

And then Dean’s mouth makes contact, tongue brushing up against his opening, and Cas just curls forward into the pillow and hopes he’ll be Dean’s favorite forever.

***

Dean arranges Cas on his back and tucks into his side to take a nap, once the orgasms have been had, and Cas dozes along with him, arm curled firmly around his shoulders to keep him close.

It’s all so nice. He drifts in and out, Dean’s hair soft against his cheek, his sleepy, content scent hovering in the air, and Cas periodically watches his face, watches his lashes flutter and his lips twitch, fascinated by the softness to him.

What a wonderful human being, he thinks, shutting his eyes and tipping his head a little closer, until his cheek brushes the top. He rubs against it a little, just on instinct, running his cheek over Dean’s hair, daring to let it touch his forehead, skin against skin.

Dean makes a soft sound, pushing into it, and Cas stills, wondering if he’s woken.

But no. He keeps sleeping on, and Cas decides to be good and cease his harassment, because Dean was so eager to see him he only slept half the night, and after providing Cas with multiple orgasms, Cas thinks he’s earned a nap and then some.

When he settles back to join him, he thinks he catches his own scent on Dean’s hair, inches from his nose, and that’s very nice, too.

He can’t quite bring himself to feel guilty.

Cas has work in the morning, and despite his own reluctance, he insists on staying at Mills Park, encouraging Dean to sleep in rather than coming to breakfast.

“I slept today, though,” Dean protests. “And I’ve got to go do shit in town all afternoon, so I probably won’t even make it back here before you do.”

Cas just shakes his head.

“Yes, but you didn’t sleep enough,” he points out. “Tomorrow night. Come get me when you’re finished, and we’ll spend tomorrow night together.”

Dean hesitates.

“What about the night after?”

Cas smiles.

“If you want.”

Needless to say, it would appear Dean _wants,_ so after kissing by the carriage until Cas starts to shiver and Dean insists he go back inside, Cas dutifully returns to the house, excited for what tomorrow will bring.

///

He’s less excited when he gets out of the bath, having decided he’d rather clean off the grime from a crate leaking some identified liquid than try to sit in it until Dean can take him to Bobby’s, and hears banging and shouting from downstairs.

Past not being familiar, the voice is _masculine,_ and Cas dresses as quickly as he can before he hurries downstairs.

When he gets to the top, he almost recoils.

The air is thick with fear, like nothing he’s ever smelled, and when he races down them, alarm high, he finds Max clinging to Billie’s sleeve in the hall, a cluster of anxious faces beyond them.

Her eyes fly to his, tear-stained and ashen.

“What?” he asks, flinching as another series of violent bangs thunder against the door. “Who is it?”

“He -it’s my husband,” she chokes out. “He’s—"

“ _Temperance_! I know you’re in there! I swear to God, I will burn this fucking place down with you in it if you don’t come out!”

“Anna and Alex are both out,” someone whispers. “Lucy, too. She went to buy the tiny fish for Katherine.”

“Billie told him to go away, but then he just — he started yelling threats, and Alex told us not to engage if we didn’t have to.”

Cas frowns at the door.

“Do you think he’ll leave?”

Max buries her face in her hands.

“I don’t know,” she sobs. “I don’t know. Maybe if we wait.”

Cas considers that for a moment, Max’s shoulders hunched and shaking, Billie watching the door with narrowed eyes, and he understands what he has to do.

He takes a deep breath.

“Alright. Then — I think someone needs to send him away.”

Her hands drop.

“You can’t,” she insists, darting out of Billie’s grasp, seizing his arm. “You can’t, Castiel. If — if someone goes out, it should be me. I can run away again, like I did before. Miss Talbot will figure something out.”

Cas stares.

“Max — that’s not a solution.”

She swallows.

“He’ll hurt you,” she whispers, and Cas simply looks at her for a moment.

And then, gently, he pulls her hand off of him.

“He could,” he agrees. “But I don’t think he will. And I would like him to leave sooner rather than later.”

And with that, he steels himself, unlocks the door, and opens it.

The man on the step is of a height with Cas, the lines of his face deep and unkind, his skin ruddy with anger. He stumbles back when Cas steps out, fists falling in his surprise as he retreats a step, and Cas calmly meets his gaze.

He pulls the door shut behind him, hoping they know to lock it.

“Hello,” he greets him, and the man swallows.

“I thought only women lived here.”

“You thought wrong. May I help you with something?” he asks politely, and the man’s shoulders stiffen.

“You’re damn right you can. My wife is in there.”

“Your wife,” Cas repeats. “What wife would that be?”

“Temperance Wilson. Send her out.”

Cas tilts his head.

“What if she’d rather stay in?”

The uncertainty disappears, rage retaking it.

“Well, it’s not her fucking choice,” he spits. “Send her out, or I’ll make every last one of you regret it.”

“I see,” Cas says, studying him. “I can’t be sure, but I have recently been led to believe that everyone has a choice. Or at least, deserves one.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re on about, but _she_ doesn’t, and believe me, if she thinks she’ll just _get away_ with running off like that, she’s sorely mistaken.”

Cas breathes in slowly, fists curling at his sides.

“No,” he starts. “I think you’re the one whose mistaken.”

The man growls.

“Enough! Stand aside. That is my _wife,_ and I have a right—"

“A lack of consequences for your actions and a right are different,” Cas interrupts, and the man’s jaw drops.

“How _dare_ you? I’ll have you arrested. The law—"

“The _law_ is wrong,” Cas says flatly. “And anyone who tries to uphold it in this instance is wrong, too. She does not want you, as her husband or as anything else, and _no one_ had the right to try and give her to you, anyway.”

_No one has a right to you,_ Dean once told him.

Cas had been troubled and confused, all of Dean’s protests and declarations utterly beyond him, because his situation had been so clear-cut. He was an abomination, and even if he weren’t, he had been given to Dean, and according to the rules, Dean could now do as he pleased.

Cas was used to being left without a choice, used to swallowing his disappointment and his bitterness and accepting someone else’s decision on the matter, and he’d had no reason to expect anything different.

But he knows what Dean was trying to tell him, now.

He knows that his conviction that yes, Dean did have a right to him, was really just Cas choosing Dean, even then.

Max has not chosen this man, and regardless of her family, of her kingdom’s laws-

This man has no right to her, in any sense, and Cas will not be the one to allow him to pretend.

The man narrows his eyes.

“God. No wonder you’re here. I know where I’ve seen you. Her stupid little newsrag.” He steps forward, hands balling into fists. “Well, I’m not about to stand here and let the prince’s wayward omega whore tell m—"

Cas was terrified, when that man attacked him in New Eden, instincts taking over to protect himself.

He’s not afraid, now.

But he is very, very angry, and once again-

He lets his instincts take over.

_///_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Implied Physical Abuse: Bela brings an elderly woman, Mrs. Hampton, to Mills Park; she appears to have suffered some sort of physical assault and also malnourishment.
> 
> Sexual Content: It is indicated that Dean performs oral sex on Cas in the pantry, and later, in this scene, Cas briefly reflects on the way Dean swallowed his semen and how much he enjoyed both that and Dean’s obvious enjoyment of it. The scene ends with Dean telling Cas that no, the pie isn't dessert.  
> In the next scene, Dean is touching/massaging Cas’s butt and thighs as a prelude to anilingus (though this scene cuts just as Dean begins). He jokes about Cas’s posterior being his favorite in the kingdom; Cas notes that this implies he has others, and Dean assures him that Cas’s is the only one he thinks about, literally kissing his butt. Amused, Cas tells Dean he’s bizarre, but that he likes him ‘so much.’ Dean asks Cas if he (Dean) is Cas’s favorite ass in the kingdom, and when Cas tries to correct that to ‘owner of,’ Dean stands by the original remark. Cas tells him he is not an ass, but that he is his favorite, then asks him to proceed. Dean tells Cas he’s his favorite, too, and then begins.
> 
> Threats/Harrassment: **This pertains to Max's husband coming to Mills Park and trying to force her to go with him. If you think reading the details may also bother you, it is probably safe to just skip it and use context clues (though Cas has an epiphany in this scene, which I detail in a separate warning after this one)**
> 
> Cas comes down from his post-work bath when he hears banging and shouting. Max’s husband has come to Mills Park, demanding she go with him and threatening to burn the house down with her in it if she doesn’t. Max discourages Cas from going out, suggesting she should be the one to go since she can run away again, but Cas tells her that is not a solution and goes out himself. Max’s husband (Mr. Wilson) continues demanding to have Max come out, insists he has a right and trying to reference the law as justification. Cas informs him the law is wrong, as is anyone who upholds it here, and that no one has a right to Max. Internally, he reflects on Dean telling him something similar, and realizes that despite his insistence that Dean did have a right to him, a part of Cas was choosing him all along; since Max never chose this, though, no one has any business trying to force it on her. The man recognizes him, then, based on the prints Max left behinds, and refers to Cas as ‘the prince’s wayward omega whore’ as he declares he won’t let him tell him what he can and can’t do. Furious, Cas lets his instincts of anger take over, and it’s implied that he then beats the man.
> 
> Implied Violence: When Max's husband comes to Mills Park and tries to threaten her into going with him, Cas confronts him and it is implied that he ends up beating him.
> 
> **Cas's Epiphany (if you didn't want to read the previous note)** : Cas reflects on the time Dean said no one had a right to him; he hadn't understood at the time, but in this moment, he recognizes that a part of him was choosing Dean, even then, and he finally internalizes that no one has a right to him or anyone else, and that these things must fall to individual choice, which he and others deserve to make.


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: references to the incident in the last chapter, use of alcohol, potentially dubious consent (details in the notes), sexual content (scene marked *** at the beginning and end, summary in the notes), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Note: this chapter contains law enforcement using their powers for good, so to speak, and though they adhere to the letter of the law, they clearly do so in a way that shows bias. In this case, that bias is in favor of characters unfairly disadvantaged by the way the laws are, but generally speaking, bias is a problem, and this part of the story is not meant to be an endorsement of any kind. I apologize if this an untimely inclusion.

“Alright, so — what seems to be the problem?” Sheriff MacMillan cocks his head. “Aside from the beating.”

The man tries to straighten, then winces, still clutching his side as he slumps back into the chair.

“That’s my _wife,_ ” he snarls, pointing to Max, who shrinks back, toward Billie and the cluster of outraged dockworkers they’d encountered en route to the gaol.

Cas, for his part, watches impassively from within the cell, some distant part of him wishing enforcement had show n up just a little bit later.

Objectively speaking, he knows that part is wrong.

(Objectively speaking.)

“Your wife?” MacMillan blinks. “Goodness! What’s a mature fellow like you doing with a bride that young?”

The man — Mr. Wilson, Cas supposes — looks taken aback.

Or at least, Cas thinks he does.

His face is a trifle swollen and mottled, now.

“ She’s of age!” he sputters, and MacMillan nods slowly.

“Right. But — you know, there’s of age and then there’s old enough.” He pauses, then adds blandly, “ Much like there are men, and then there are gentlemen.”

Cas _thinks_ Mr. Wilson’s face turns redder, though again — it’s somewhat difficult to tell.

“Anyhow,” MacMillan continues easily. “ That’s hardly what we’re here to discuss. What makes you think this is your wife, sir?’

Mr. Wilson stares.

“You think I wouldn’t recognize my own goddamn wife? That’s Temperance. Temperance Wilson.”

“Temperance Wilson?” MacMillan echoes, then glances at his officers before peering at Max. “I’ve never heard of a Temperance Wilson. Aren’t you Max, from Mills Park? The one who waits outside Cooke’s for it to open on all her days off?’

Max hesitates, then nods.

“Now, that’s a _lie_ —"

“What’s your surname, miss, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Again, Max pauses, uncertain, and Cas clears his throat.

“Novak,” he supplies evenly, and Mr. Wilson’s head swivels, mouth falling open.

“Of all the bald-faced—"

“Are you _quite_ sure this is your wife, sir?” MacMillan interrupts, looking puzzled. “Admittedly, it’s a large city, but I know Miss Novak’s been here for months, and no one’s ever heard anything about a husband.”

It is a very large city, and Cas somehow doubts the sheriff would know either way, but he certainly appreciates the corroboration.

“Because she ran away!” Mr. Wilson insists. “It’s taken me months just to track her down!”

MacMillan’s confusion only seems to grow.

_“Months?”_ he echoes. “ Well, now that’s just bizarre!”

“A man is entitled to his prope—"

“Usually if a woman runs away from me, I assume she had a good reason,” he continues, like Mr. Wilson hadn’t spoken. “ Especially if she _hides_ afterward!”

There’s a round of chuckles at that, and MacMillan looks pleased.

Mr. Wilson seems less so; he just stares, murder in his eyes, as MacMillan begins to stroke his beard pleasantly, eyes thoughtful.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, sir. Your tale’s a bit farfetched; why would such a nice, hard-working young lady like Miss Novak need to marry someone so much older than herself, when she has Mills Park and a big brother perfectly able to take care of her while she considers her options? And what’s more, why on earth would a man have to chase after his own wife in order to keep her?

“ _That being said_ — I recognize that this is a very serious claim, indeed . So, if you can bring some proof of your identity, and have one of her parents come with her original birth papers to identify her — along with her signed marriage certificate, of course — then I will be more than happy to facilitate the law’s due course.”

Mr. Wilson scowls.

“And him?” he snaps, looking at Cas. “He’s a feral omega, and he’s dangerous!”

Cas just rolls his eyes.

Personally, he thinks that if you’re going to go around banging on doors and threatening to burn homes down, you deserve what you get.

“Mr. Novak?” MacMillan looks incredulous. “Well, I suppose he _could_ be dangerous, but in his defense, sir, you came shouting about burning his house down and kidnapping a member of his family. Even if you do somehow conjure up these papers — folks don’t like to live in burning buildings.”

Cas experiences a perverse sort of smugness at the confirmation, but he politely stays quiet.

“But—"

“He _is_ an omega, after all,” MacMillan continues, giving Cas a sympathetic look, though his eyes twinkle. “He must have been terrified, some strange alpha threatening his home like that . We can hardly blame him for getting a touch . . . hysterical.”

_“Hysterical?”_ Mr. Wilson cries. “Look at my face, man! That is not _hysterical—"_

“Anyway,” MacMillan interjects, breezy as he lowers his voice and leans in. “The crown prince has been coming around courting him for months, now. I wouldn’t be surprised if that ‘feral omega’ is your future _queen,_ come Spring. Obviously, I’m sure his highness would never use his power to subvert the law, but still. If I were a regular fellow like yourself — or even myself — well, I’d pick my battles, is all I’m saying.”

Mr. Wilson just stares at Cas.

“My _what?”_

“Your future queen,” the other officers echo helpfully, and if Cas weren’t so taken aback, he’d laugh.

They _are_ all telling lies, here, but — surely they don’t expect Mr. Wilson to _believe_ that?

_“Anyway_ . . . of course, no one is above the law, so Mr. Novak will have to be released on bail until the magistrate can decide his case, but I’m sure he’s no threat.” MacMillan clears his throat. “So long as his own safety isn’t being threatened, that is.”

“We’ll pay it,” Mr. Potts announces, to Cas’s surprise, quickly surging forward. “Whatever it is.”

MacMillan looks pleased.

“Oh, good. It sounds like we can all get on with our evenings, then. Three shillings, if you would.”

Cas watches, stunned, as there’s an immediate fumbling of coinpurses, and then half a dozen hands are stretched out.

“You can’t be serious,” Mr. Wilson whispers.

MacMillan ignores him, chuckling.

“Now gentleman, that’s about five times the asking, and you know I don’t take bribes.” He plucks three coins at random, then winks at Cas. “ Best buy those folks a drink, eh, lad?”

Cas is speechless for a moment, touched, and then he smiles.

“It will be my pleasure.”

Satisfied, MacMillan turns, nodding to one of his men.

“Well, don’t keep him waiting. I expect he’ll want to see his little sister home safe.” He returns his attention to Mr. Wilson. “And as for you . . . well, if you sit tight, the doctor should be back any minute.”

“Does this mean we’re going to the tavern?”one of the Mr. Smiths asks hopefully, and Mr. Potts scoffs.

“Well, of _course_ we’re going to the tavern! Mr. Novak just got out of gaol! That’s cause for celebration!”

Cas blinks.

“I was there for less than an hour.”

Mr. Potts slaps his back, grinning.

“And now you’re already out! Well, done, my boy!” He turns, nodding toward Billie and Max. “Are you ladies coming, or should we see you home?”

Max hesitates.

“Can I?”

“I don’t see why not! The more, the merrier.”

“Oh.” She looks at Billie. “Are you going?”

Billie shrugs.

“Why not? It’s been some time since I spent an evening out.”

Max nods.

“We should send word back to Mills Park, then. They’re probably worried, and I don’t want Susan or the others to be left out.”

“Maybe I should do it,” Cas says hastily. “Dean is supposed to come and—"

“And I’m sure he will!” Mr. Kent assures him. “His highness is a champion drinker, by all accounts; I bet he’ll be _delighted_ to meet us there.”

Cas hesitates.

“But—"

“Mr. Wilkins, go have the message sent! We’ll head to the tavern and see you there!”

There’s a chorus of cheers, and Mr. Wilkins breaks off to flag down a messenger boy. Cas uneasily moves to follow as the group starts down the street, although he’s still a little worried about the change in plans.

According to Charlie and Sam, Dean _does_ like drinking, though, so perhaps the logic here is sound. Besides — Dean might even be _excited_ by the new plans. He and Cas have never been to a tavern together, though Cas has heard many stories about Dean and taverns. If anything, this is a good opportunity, isn’t it?

A little more confident, he moves to catch up — but suddenly, there’s a hand on his sleeve, tugging.

He stops, giving Max a questioning look.

For a moment, she says nothing , fingers tightening in his sleeve, and then:

“I just — I want to say — thank you. For — for doing that. It was a lot. ”

Ahead, the group glances back, coming to a stop and waiting, exchanging curious glances.

“Of course, Max,” Cas returns, a little at a loss, and Max nods.

And then she abruptly looks upset, eyes dropping to her shoes.

“You could have lost everything.” Her voice is suddenly thick, shoulders tense. “You — you should have just given me up. That was brave.”

Which — Cas thinks of Miss Talbot telling him about the family’s debts, of Max’s mother on her wedding day, angry but powerless to stop it; of Max, terrified and still insisting she be the one to go out, that she be the one to pay the price for others’ faults and follies when she had already paid well beyond her share.

He can’t help it. He thinks there should have been a way, whether one her father found, or one that someone else found for them.

Because this, today — the wedding — all of it — it never should have come to that.

He studies her for a moment, and then he reaches out, gently patting her head.

She flinches, and at last, she looks at him, eyes damp when the light hits them.

“As were you. You’re a good girl, Max,” he adds quietly. “It was an honor to be brave for you.”

Max just stares at him for a long moment, chin gradually starting to tremble.

Then she throws her arms around him, clinging so tight her toes only barely still brush the ground, and cries right through all four layers on his shoulder.

Dean gets back to Mills Park hours later than he wanted to, the sun mostly set, but he has some promising leads on potential options for women with kids, and his visit with the local magistrate was definitely worth the trip. He still has a followup meeting once the guy’s looked into what protections they might be able to legally guarantee, but late hour or not, Dean feels pretty good about it.

He feels less good about finding the house oddly quiet, Cas nowhere in sight ( not that Dean thought he might be eagerly waiting or anything ) .

Well, Dean decides, he’s probably just upstairs taking his bath, and Dean will get to enjoy some low-key judgment and grumpiness for leaving him to do it all by himself.

(Not that Dean minds having to make up for things.)

“Oh, hello, your highness,” Lucy greets him, shifting the kitten in her arms. It meows, watching him with sleepy eyes.

“Hey.” He nods to it, smiling. “That must be Katherine, right? She’s cute.”

Lucy gives him an approving look.

“Yes, she is. I assume you’re here for Castiel?”

Dean perks up, nodding.

“Yeah, is he upstairs?”

“Oh, no. They’ve all gone to the tavern.”

Dean freezes.

“The — what?”

“The tavern,” she repeats matter-of-factly. “Castiel got arrested, but he’s out now, and they went for drinks to celebrate. I’d be with them, but I think poor Katherine has a cold, and I need to see to it that she gets better.”

As if on cue, the kitten lets out a ridiculously adorable, tiny sneeze, and Dean gives it a startled look, not that that’s the most surprising thing he just heard.

“He got _arrested_?” he repeats, incredulous. “He — _why?_ ”

Lucy grimaces.

“That awful husband of Max’s came around, and Castiel took care of it.”

Alarm flares within.

“He _what?_ Took care of it _how?_ Is he _okay_ ?”

She lifts her brows.

“Well, I should hope so, if he’s gone carousing. He’s expecting you, by the way,” she adds, and Dean quickly nods, unease growing, despite the logic.

“Yeah. Yeah, thank you. I’ll head over there.” He takes a deep breath. “Uh, have a good night, then. And good luck with Katherine.”

And with that, he races back to the carriage and starts toward town.

The tavern is lit up and packed when Dean gets there, but it doesn’t take him long to locate Cas and a large group of familiar faces at a long table in the back corner.

Cas lights up when he sees Dean, thankfully unblemished and intact, at least as far as Dean can tell — and nearly falls off the bench trying to climb over it.

“Dean! You came!”

He hastily moves forward, slipping an arm around Cas and guiding him back onto the bench before plunking down after him. Cas grins, wide and gummy, and leans in to kiss him.

“I had to bathe without you,” he mumbles, immediately burrowing into Dean’s chest. “It wasn’t fun.”

Dean snorts. _Predictable._

“ Yeah — sorry about that. Everything took longer than I expected.” He reaches up, running his fingers through Cas’s mussed hair, and Cas hums. “Made progress, though.”

“Good job,” Cas agrees, patting his chest, and Dean smiles.

“How many have you had?”

Cas sighs.

“I don’t know. I bought them drinks, because the sheriff told me to, because they paid my bail, but then everyone bought _me_ drinks, and then we arm-wrestled, and anyway, it’s all . . . very difficult to keep track of.”

“Yeah? How’d you do on the arm-wrestling?”

Cas tips his head back, eyes hooded and sly.

“Susan says I am the ‘undefeated champion.’”

Dean grins, and just barely resists the temptation to kiss him.

“You are, huh?” He bites his lip. “You know what else you are?”

“Hm?”

“You, uh. You’re really cute like this.”

“Like what?”

“Drunk.”

“Am I drunk?”

Dean laughs.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Ah.” Cas lowers his head again, tucking into Dean’s neck. “Charlie and Sam said you often get drunk.”

Dean hesitates.

“Yeah. I used to. It, uh. It can be pretty fun. But I haven’t done a lot of that, lately. Not for a while, now. ”

“Mm.” Cas inhales, and then shifts, breathing in again. It takes Dean a few seconds to realize he’s being scented, and the back of his neck warms.

“Hey. We’re still in public, buddy.”

“Susan says it’s a tavern,” Cas counters, sniffing again. “You don’t have to be as polite here.”

“Right, but still—"

“I love your scent, Dean. It was disturbing, when you first took me away, but — I thought it was so nice.” Cas breathes in deeply, then sighs, oblivious to Dean’s shock. “I like it even more, now. And the orgasms — the orgasms are always better when I have your scent.”

Heat rushes somewhere altogether different, at that, but before he can figure out how to respond, Cas hums, and then there’s a wet brush of something Dean’ s pretty sure is his goddamn _tongue_ against Dean’s throat.

“Dean,” he murmurs. “I beat a man, today.”

Dean swallows, feeling Cas’s lips press against the skin with the movement , and tries to hold very, very still.

“I — I kind of heard.”

“You liked it, last time I told you I beat a man,” he continues lowly. “I wanted you to know.”

Dean nods a fraction, desperately trying to ignore the sweet, potent quality Cas’s scent is taking on.

“Yeah. Yeah, you did great. Are you okay?”

“No,” Cas says, and Dean stiffens, worried.

“What? What ha—"

“The tavern is fun, but — I want you to take off all my clothes and give me an orgasm, now.”

Dean gapes at the top of his head, utterly speechless and instincts struggling to keep up.

Cas twists suddenly, peering out at the rest of the table.

“Have you all had orgasms before?” he calls loudly, and the conversation stops, a table full of faces turning in surprise. “They’re very nice. _Especially_ from Dean.”

Dean closes his eyes, face burning, but not before he sees the stunned expressions.

“Oh — but — you can’t have one from Dean,” Cas adds. “He’s going to be King someday.”

“Oh, my God,” Dean mutters, gripping Cas’s shoulder tightly. “Okay, you know what? I think we should get you home.”

Cas lurches away, blue eyes lit up when Dean reluctantly opens his own.

“For orgasms?”

“Nope,” Dean says quickly, lest anyone assume the worst. “To sleep it off.”

Cas frowns.

“Sleep what off?”

“Whatever you need to,” Dean mutters, reaching for him. “Come on. Up.”

Cas struggles to his feet, gripping Dean’s arm for support. Dean’s jaw tightens when he sees Cas’s bandaged knuckles, but he didn’t see any other signs of damage, and he consoles himself that at least someone patched him up.

“Are we going to Bobby’s?” Cas asks, leaning into him as Dean scans the bar for Anna, pretty sure he’ d seen her around, and Dean shakes his head.

“Nope. You get to sleep in your own bed, tonight.”

“But I already packed.”

“You can sleep over tomorrow.”

Cas stops, resisting when Dean tries to keep pulling him forward.

“No. We agreed. Tonight.”

Dean huffs.

“Cas. You’re drunk. I can’t sleep with you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It just — it looks really bad if I — hey, Anna!”

Anna turns, lifting her brows when she sees him.

“Your highness. What’s going on?”

He clears his throat, tugging Cas along as he moves a little closer, wanting to make sure she hears.

“He’s, uh. He kinda got carried away. I’m taking him back to Mills Park.”

Anna narrows her eyes.

“And then I’m leaving,” Dean says quickly.

“No, you’re not,” Cas protests. “If we don’t get to sleep together, you should at least stay until curfew.”

“Cas—"

“This isn’t just, Dean. I — I expected better from you.”

Anna’s lips twitch.

“Assuming you keep your hands to yourself, I don’t see why you can’t.” She pauses. “Unless you think you won’t be able to.”

“Of course I can,” Dean grumbles, and for the most part, he even believes it. “It’s him I’m worried about.”

Cas has the nerve to fucking _smirk,_ at that, eyes flicking over him in a way Dean has never seen before but which absolutely has his pants feeling tighter on the spot.

“Why should I? You said I could touch you.”

“Yeah, when you know what you’re _doing!”_

Cas’s smirk immediately drops into a frown.

“I do know what I’m doing.”

Dean just turns away, giving Anna a helpless look.

She studies them for a moment, contemplative, and then reaches for a glass on the bartop.

“Water. Make him drink it. Leave if you have to, but I’d like you to keep an eye on him until you’re sure he’s not going to vomit or anything.”

Cas recoils, making a face.

“I don’t want to vomit.”

“Try not to,” she agrees, smiling, then reaches out, ruffling his hair. “Have fun with Dean.”

Cas sighs, accepting the water without protest.

“Tell _him_ that,” he mutters, and drains the glass.

Dean suppresses a sigh.

He has a feeling it’s going to be a long night.

“We’re lucky I would have been yours, anyway,” Cas says in the carriage, face tucked back in the crook of Dean’s neck and hands stuffed up his shirt, thighs snug on either side of Dean’s as he leaves clumsy, wet kisses all over Dean’s throat, and Dean’s busy keeping his hands respectfully flattened against the bench while he wonders if he should have tried harder to make Cas sit by himself when the words finally sink in.

“Wait, what?”

“Although — Dean, you need to change your laws,” Cas continues, breath hot against the damp, sensitive skin over Dean’s collarbone. “They’re _bad_ .”

“Okay?” Dean agrees breathlessly , distracted by the kisses but mostly by the _I would have been yours, anyway_ because _yes,_ Cas is drunk and unreliable right now, but what does that mean —

“Not just — a little bad,” Cas adds, experimentally feeling around Dean’s nipple. “But very bad. Selling your daughter should never be an option. And — and you shouldn’t belong to people you don’t choose to give yourself to.” Cas sighs, resting his forehead against Dean’s shoulder and abandoning the nipple in favor of caressing the ribs nearby. “And if you do belong to someone, you should — there should be a law that says they have to give you orgasms, whether you’re drunk or not.”

Dean chokes out a laugh.

“Trust me, we don’t have laws like that for really good reasons. But — I’ll give you one in the morning, Cas. As many as you want. I promise.” He hesitates. “But, uh. You don’t belong to me.”

Cas pauses, and then he abruptly sits up, so fast he almost topples backward, and Dean just barely manages to wrap his arms around him in time, keeping him in place.

“Don’t I?”

Dean shakes his head, a little wistful.

“You don’t. Honestly, no one — dumb laws aside, nobody really belongs to anybody else. We just — sometimes we like to let each other pretend.”

Cas studies him for a long moment, blue eyes surprisingly clear, given the state he’s in.

“You’re much more naive than I would have thought,” he eventually says, and Dean makes a face.

“In what way?”

Cas just shakes his head.

“I still want an orgasm.”

“Cas. In the morning.”

“But I want one now.”

“Because you beat a guy up, went to gaol, got drunk, and probably had everybody telling you what a stone-cold badass you are. Of _course_ you want sex, Cas.”

“Sex,” Cas repeats, like he’s feeling out the word. “Is what we do sex?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Doing sex with you is phenomenal, Dean,” he murmurs. “I generally want to whether I’ve done all those other things or not. I just wish you wanted to do sex as often as I do.”

Dean really, really wishes Cas had magically sobered up since they left the bar, because Cas has no fucking clue.

He hesitates.

“Yeah, I do.”

“You don’t.”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure I do. I just — I don’t want it to be all we do.”

“It won’t be,” Cas protests.

“Yeah, well — I don’t want you to think that’s all I want.”

“How could I think that? Most of the time we’ve known each other, we haven’t done sex at all, but you still came to see me.” Cas sighs, thumbing over Dean’s sternum, eyes flicking between Dean’s. “We’re best friends, Dean.”

Dean bites his lip.

“Yeah. We are,” he says slowly. “I — I hope we always will be. But, uh. We’re also — the stuff we do, the — the kissing, and the sex, and — all of that, there’s a different word for that.”

Cas looks surprised.

“There is? What is it?”

Dean swallows.

“Lovers,” he says. “You and me — we, uh. We’re lovers.”

Cas blinks.

“Lovers,” he repeats, and Dean shrugs, embarrassed. “I thought that was for — for people infatuated with one another.”

“I — yeah, it can be. But someone who comes to see you and has sex with you — they’re your lover, too.”

“Oh.” Cas lifts a hand from beneath Dean’s shirt, touching his face. “So even though you’re not infatuated with me . . . you’re my lover.”

Dean loves Cas, exactly as he is, loves everything about him that’s brought him here, to Dean, to touching Dean’s face and his skin and wanting him; and he loves having the privilege of being with him as he _learns_ all these things, but . . .

A part of him wishes Cas already _knew_ , wishes that Cas at least knew enough to sense what Dean was probably feeling, and that he knew enough not to send signals he didn’t really mean, because right now Dean wants to say _yeah, Cas, I am infatuated with you,_ but he doesn’t know where Cas’s heart plays into all of this.

He doesn’t know, even if Cas returned the sentiment, if he’d really _mean_ it, or if he actually just likes that Dean is his friend and makes his body feel good.

At this point, Dean’s not quite brave enough to hear Cas tell him he _doesn’t_ feel that way, or worse, have to worry whether or not he really means it.

“I . . . I’m definitely your lover,” is all Dean says, and Cas nods, regarding him thoughtfully.

“That’s misleading.”

“Yeah. Kind of. Words are — they’re weird.”

Cas nods, still stroking Dean’s cheek.

“I like it,” he announces. “I like . . . I like you being my lover.”

Dean’s heart is a wreck, chambers a chaotic labyrinth of blood that doesn’t know which way its supposed to flow.

“Well, I like being your lover,” he manages. “I like _you_ being my lover.”

Cas’s lips quirk, some strange combination of softness and satisfaction overtaking his expression.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “I am your lover.”

He ducks his chin and, before Dean can protest, he kisses him.

“Dean, I’m slicking,” Cas informs him, once they’ve made it up to the bedroom, and Dean’s honestly surprised his bones don’t just shatter from the impact the words have on him, even though he kind of already knew.

Because he can fucking _smell_ that.

He ignores Cas, making short work of the bed, arranging the pillows just so — he doesn’t want Cas choking on his own puke, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious to him that he really shouldn’t stay — and layering the blankets for maximum preservation of warmth.

When he turns back around, ready to instruct Cas to get in, he finds Cas watching with hungry eyes.

“What?” Dean asks, mouth dry.”

Cas wets his lips.

“I don’t know. I like watching you make my bed.”

Dean freezes, cheeks heating as he realizes he’s just rubbed his scent all over Cas’s bedclothes and low-key built him a nest, and _maybe_ it’s just the booze or the lingering adrenaline high of a fight, but also maybe Dean building a nest _turned Cas on._

He really, really needs to leave.

“Okay. Uh. You need to — to change. For bed.”

Cas purses his lips.

“I think I’m sober,” he tries. “I don’t have to put on a nightgown. You could undress, too, and we could have orgasms.”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“Nope. That’s — just — nope. Sorry. Not tonight.”

Cas huffs, reaching for his buttons, and he takes so long to fumble the top two open that Dean finally moves forward and starts doing it for him, if only to make sure he doesn’t tear it.

Cas is particular about his clothes, and also Dean needs to go sooner rather than later, and perfunctorily helping Cas get undressed just makes _sense_.

Cas sucks in a breath when Dean’s fingers accidentally brush his chest, even though it’s through his undershirt, and Dean ruthlessly peels shirt and waistcoat back before instructing him to handle the undershirt himself.

“But I like it when you take off my clothes,” Cas mumbles, and Dean swallows, turning away.

“Yup. I can tell. But you should finish by yourself, if you can.”

Cas just sighs, and Dean listens to the erratic sound of rustling for what feels like a full goddamn century before Cas announces he’s naked.

“Okay. Sit tight, I’m gonna get you a nightgown.”

He should have _already_ gotten Cas a nightgown, but what can he say?

He was a little busy trying to think unsexy thoughts and strategize his exit plan.

“But I’m hot,” Cas protests. “I don’t want a nightgown. And — Dean, I’m still slicking. It’s going to get dirty.”

Dean could cry. He really, really could.

“Right. Okay. Then — get in bed.”

Cas sighs again, moving toward it, and Dean quickly turns, desperate not to have to see him, because seriously, why make this any harder than it has to be?

“I slick so often around you,” Cas remarks, and Dean’s stomach has some sort of nervous breakdown. “When you visit, I have to change my drawers at least twice a day. Even when you’re not here, and I just think of you, I get so . . . and when you _are_ —"

“Cas,” Dean interrupts, a little desperate, but Cas barrels on.

“It’s strange. Sometimes, you make me feel like I’m in heat, except if heats were actually pleasant.” Cas pauses. “Oh. It’s getting worse.”

“Okay,” Dean snaps, practically vibrating out of his skin. “Are you in? Can I leave?”

“Yes. But I don’t want you to leave. I’m erect,” Cas adds, and the bastard has the nerve to sound _sad._ “Dean, I — I really, really want you to give me an orgasm.”

And that — that’s _it._

“Okay,” Dean grits out, because he’s terrible and he’s definitely, definitely going to hell. “You can have an orgasm.”

Cas sucks in a breath, and Dean can tell by the sound of the bedclothes that he must have moved forward.

“Not with me, though.”

There’s a long silence.

“What?”

“I am gonna stand over here,” Dean continues, moving further away, by the dresser, “In this corner, and tell you what to do. And you’re gonna give _yourself_ an orgasm.”

“Oh.” Another pause. “I don’t . . . Dean, that doesn’t sound as nice.”

“Well, I’m not touching you tonight, so take it or leave it.”

Cas hesitates, and then he sighs.

“Alright. I suppose we can try it that way,” he adds, doubtful, and Dean takes a deep breath — oh, _God —_ and turns more squarely toward the wall.

***

“Okay, Cas. Put your hands on your thighs.”

A pause, and then:

“Okay. I am.”

“Now — now draw them up, toward your hips. Slowly.”

He hears the faintest brush of skin on skin, and closes his eyes, picturing it.

“Then I want you to move ‘em back down, but just with your fingertips.”

“Oh,” Cas whispers, after a beat. “This feels nice.”

“Good. When people touch you, even if it’s just yourself, it should always feel good. That’s the number one rule.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Now — I want you to keep touching yourself like that, just your hands and your fingers on your skin. But go over your stomach, and your chest, too. Just — gently, okay? You’re just getting started.”

“Okay.”

The bed creaks, and Dean listens to the whisper-soft sound of Cas’s fingers trailing over himself, of his sighs, equal parts surprised and contented.

“Do you ever do this? Touch your body, not just — not just the fun stuff?”

“No,” Cas murmurs. “I should. I like it. Not as much as when you do, but — it’s nice.”

Dean clenches his fists, taking grounding breaths.

Being decent is _hard,_ in more ways than one.

“Okay. Now — where’d it feel best? When you touched?”

“Mm.” He hears Cas shift. “My chest.”

Dean huffs a laugh, despite his frustration.

“Like your nipples.”

“Yes. Also — my thighs. I like having my thighs touched.”

“Yeah? Well, you have fucking incredible thighs, Cas. You deserve to have them touched.”

“Really.” There’s a brief silence, and then _—_ “Do you want to—"

“Cas.”

Cas sighs.

“I don’t understand you.”

Dean shakes his head, some of the heat receding in the face of his amusement.

“Sorry, sweetheart. Tomorrow morning, okay? I’ll touch your thighs and your nipples and every part of you I can reach. Anything you want. But for now, just — get your thumb and your index finger wet.”

Apparently, Cas thinks ‘get your fingers wet’ means thoroughly suck on them so Dean can fucking hear it, but after a few moments, he announces they’re wet, and Dean nods.

“Take your nipple between them. Like how I did, last time. Just — stroke it, squeeze it a little. Play with it.”

There’s a quiet gasp, and then Cas makes a low, rough noise.

“Good?” Dean asks, hoarse.

“Yes. Yes, good. It — it tingles.”

“Okay. Do that until it gets to be too much, or it stops feeling as good, and then do the other. Or — get your other fingers wet and play with both of them.”

There’s quiet for a little bit, and then another wet, sucking sound, and this time, Cas hisses.

“Yup,” Dean manages. “Just like that.”

A brief, quiet moan follows, and he hears Cas shift around in the sheets, and because he’s a fucking masochist, he pictures it, pictures Cas pinching at his chest and squirming, cheeks flushed and hair rubbed to disaster by the pillow as he arches up, cock leaking all over his own stomach.

“Want more,” Cas groans out. “What next?”

“You can — you can touch your thighs,” Dean tells him, struggling to stay on focus. “Seemed like you liked it when I squeezed them. They’re, uh. They’re big muscles — especially on you — and pressure usually feels good on muscles.”

“Oh.” He hears Cas’s hands slide against his thighs, and a few more seconds pass, Dean waiting. “Dean — can I touch my cock?”

Dean leans forward, bracing his forearm against the wall for support.

“Yeah,” he chokes out. “Yeah, you can touch your cock. You should get your hand wet, first. With your slick, if that’s okay. As wet as you can.”

“Oh. Okay.” There’s another quiet noise, not from Cas’s mouth, this time, and then Cas sighs. “It’s wet, Dean.”

Dean draws in a rough breath, leaning harder into the wall.

“Good. Now wrap it around yourself, like you would if I wasn’t here.”

There’s a pause, and then a gasp from the bed, and then another low moan, a wet, rhythmic sound starting up, and Dean’s not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed Cas didn’t wait for him to tell him what to do next.

“Feel good?” he asks, even though they both know it does.

“Y-yes,” Cas pants. “Very good. It — it’s so good, Dean. What do you do?”

“Me?” Dean asks, a little hysterical. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t slick. Do you just use the oil?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Cas.”

“I think — _oh_ — I think slick feels better.”

Dean swallows a whimper.

“Me, too, Cas. But I don’t slick.”

“That’s unjust,” Cas moans. “Do you — do you want some of my slick, Dean? I — there’s so much, I could—"

“It doesn’t keep,” Dean practically snaps, but maybe he should ask someone how long it does, because _jesus_ _christ_.

“At all? What about — what about just tonight? You should have an orgasm, too, Dean, I _—“_ Cas cuts off, groaning, and _fuck,_ the sounds from the bed are just _—_ “I hate having an orgasm when you don’t.”

Dean wants to weep.

“Maybe it would, but I can’t have one here, and I don’t have anything for you to put it in.”

Cas makes some strange sound of dismay crossed with pleasure, and then he gasps.

“Dean,” he says urgently. “There — there’s an empty lotion jar on the dresser.”

Which — Dean’s not. He is not seriously going to let Cas put his slick in a jar so Dean can go home and slather his cock in it and pretend he has Cas open and wanting underneath him.

He’s _not_.

Dean shoves off the wall and stomps to the dresser, snatching the jar up, and when he turns around _—_

He’s surprised he doesn’t just _come_.

“Did you find it?” Cas asks, but his eyes are shut and his hips keep lifting off the bed and he has one hand on his cock, the other disappeared between his legs, and no fucking _wonder_ the sounds were all so wet. Even as Dean wonders what he did to deserve this, he’s not sure how he means it.

He averts his gaze, stumbling to the bed and slapping the jar down next to Cas’s hip, turning away as soon as he can.

“It’s there,” he chokes out, and then hastens back to his corner.

Cas doesn’t respond, not unless you count the long, drawn out moan that follows as a response, and then the bed starts creaking in a faster rhythm, unmistakable slick sounds increasing. Cas is audibly breathless and periodically crying out, groaning Dean’s goddamn name, and Dean’s dick is throbbing in his trousers and as soon as Cas is satisfied and tucked in bed to go to sleep, he’s going straight home and taking care of himself and thinking about whatever the hell he wants when he does it, because you can’t get in trouble just for fantasy.

And since you _probably_ can’t get in trouble just for suggestion _—_

“How many, Cas?” he demands, a little ragged, even though all he’s doing is hunching in a corner and listening.

“H-how many what?”

“How many fingers?”

“I — just — two? Like you did.”

Dean clenches his fists.

“You can put another one in.”

“But — but it feels good. Won’t that—"

“You don’t have to. If it doesn’t feel better, take it out,” Dean adds. “But you can try. I — I think you’ll like it.”

The sounds stop for a moment.

And then Cas takes a deep breath, and there’s an obscene sort of squelch, and then _—_

He cries out, and Dean swears to God, he is _this close_ to coming in his trousers, just from hearing this.

“ _Dean,_ ” Cas moans, and then the rhythm picks back up, a rustling accompaniment, like Cas is maybe twisting in the bed, is maybe giving himself his fingers and stretching himself out and really, really enjoying it, and Dean can feel his own swollen, aching knot in his shorts, and since he’s pretty sure all it would take right now is a well-timed palm firmly brushed over the front of his trousers, it’s all he can do not to cave to temptation. “Ah — it’s so — Dean — Dean, I — the coming — I’m going to — I’m—"

“Do it,” Dean grits out. “You earned it, Cas, just let it go—"

There’s a string of rough, aborted sounds, bed creaking from the stress, and then there’s a particularly loud thud as the headboard slams into the wall and Cas lets out a shout.

Dean doesn’t _quite_ come in his shorts, but it’s a near thing, and he finds himself clinging to the wall and panting like he just ran ten miles anyway, listening to Cas do the same on the bed.

“They fit,” Cas mumbles after a few seconds, and Dean snorts.

“Okay. Was it good?”

“Yes,” Cas answers readily. “But—"

He stops, and Dean frowns, the throb in his groin abating slightly.

“But? Something wrong?”

“No. No, just . . .” He trails off, vaguely unsure. “It made me wonder.”

Dean goes still.

_About what?_ he wants to ask.

He doesn’t dare.

***

Cas clears his throat.

“Thank you for the orgasm.”

“Uh. Don’t thank me. Thank yourself.”

Cas huffs a laugh.

“Dean.”

“What? It’s true.”

Cas sighs.

“Will you at least come hold me, before you have to leave?”

Dean weighs his options, wonders if that’s really a good idea, then decides he doesn’t care.

He turns around, faltering a little at the mess on Cas’s stomach, at his shiny, slick-covered fingers, glistening on the sheet beside it, and veers off toward the pitcher on the dresser first.

“I’m gonna clean you up, okay?”

He glances over to find Cas watching with narrowed eyes.

“And then you’ll hold me.”

Dean snorts.

“Yeah. Then I — I’ll hold you.”

“Alright, then,” Cas says, sounding _indulgent,_ of all things, and Dean shakes his head.

“You’re fucking wonderful,” he mutters, and Cas gives him a calculating look.

“Well . . . you’d probably think I was _more_ wonderful if you let me give you an orgasm.”

“Cas.”

“I could, um, suck your cock, again.”

“ _Cas._ ”

“I liked when you swallowed it. My release, I mean. I could swallow yours. We could see if you liked it, too.”

This is punishment, Dean decides. Whether Cas realizes it or not, this is a watered-down vengeance for all the bullshit and headgames Dean put him through when he first came to Lawrence.

It _has_ to be.

“Not tonight,” he mumbles, steeling himself and approaching the bed.

Cas sighs.

“But I want to.”

Dean swallows, cloth hovering over Cas’s stomach as Cas watches him with plaintive blue eyes.

“You want to suck my cock,” he clarifies.

Cas nods.

“I suck on my fingers sometimes, when I touch myself,” he supplies, idly reaching out to touch the fabric of Dean’s trousers, and Dean tries not to flinch. “Admittedly, they’re not as big as your — your cock, Dean, but it’s bizarrely pleasurable. And everything we do is better the second time. I think I’d like having you in my mouth again.”

Dean would give just about anything in the world right now if it could only magic Cas sober.

“Okay. Uh. Thank you. Thank you for telling me that,” he manages. “Why don’t we — revisit it in the morning, and if you still want that, you can, uh. Suck my cock all you want.”

Cas nods, giving him a thoughtful look.

“Did your others?”

“What?”

“Did your others suck your cock?”

Well, _that’s_ always a good boner remedy.

“Cas,” he sighs, tiredly drawing the cloth across the come cooling on his stomach. “We talked about this. That — that doesn’t matter.”

“So you’ve said,” Cas murmurs, watching him. “And _—_ it mostly doesn’t.”

Dean gives him an uneasy look.

“Mostly?”

Cas sighs, tugging on his trouser leg again.

“Mostly,” he agrees, sounding a little sad. “But — I make you happy. And you said I was your favorite.”

“I — you know there aren’t any others, right? Not right now. You — you’re the only one, Cas.”

Cas studies him for a moment, then smiles, a little wry.

“But there were,” he says softly. “And there will be.”

Dean’s stomach drops.

_No, there won’t,_ he wants to say. There’s never been anyone like Cas, and after this — after this, Dean’s pretty sure he’s done.

Cas is it, and whatever happens, however this ends — this isn’t one Dean ever gets over.

This isn’t a feeling that ever _stops,_ even if he learns to live with it.

He just — he doesn’t know how to say that without sounding like he’s asking for something, without putting pressure on Cas.

He clears his throat, gently lifting Cas’s wrist and cleaning his hand.

“Hey. I’m not worried about it.”

Cas snorts.

“Of course you’re not.”

Dean winces.

“No — I just — I mean—" He huffs, abandoning the cloth and dropping to one knee beside the bed, squeezing Cas’s hand. Cas gives him a startled look. “Listen. You — you’re really special to me, Cas.”

Cas’s eyes soften, and he abruptly squeezes back.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t,” Dean protests, frustrated. “I can tell you don’t. If you did — if you knew how special you were — you wouldn’t ever worry about ‘others’ or anything like that. You’d know you’d always be my favorite.”

“Dean—"

“I’m serious. I promise, Cas, there aren’t going to be others. I’ll never even _think_ about any others. Not as long as that’s what you want from me.”

Cas quiets, staring intently.

Then he shakes free of Dean’s hand, reaching up to touch his cheek.

“You promise.”

Dean nods.

“I promise.”

“You promise you won’t think about others?”

“I swear.”

“For as long as I want?”

“You just let me know, Cas.”

Cas hesitates.

“Forever?”

Dean stares, lungs freezing.

“You . . . you think you want that forever?”

Cas nods.

“If I can.” He sighs, lightly stroking Dean’s cheek. “But I understand more than you think, Dean. I don’t expect anything from you.”

Dean has no idea what that means, exactly, but he does know that he feels like the cavalry just performed their May Day parade routine right over him.

_B_ _ut I’m beginning to think I’ll get word of something even better before the year is out._

Dean swallows.

When Cas says he understands more than Dean thinks _—_

What exactly does he mean by that?

“Dean,” Cas says gently, tapping his nose. “This is nice, but I’d like you to hold me, now.”

“Right,” Dean mumbles, awkwardly getting to his feet, mind racing. “Right. Uh. Maybe — maybe we could pick this back up tomorrow, though? Just — touch base? Maybe?”

Cas shrugs.

“Alright. After orgasms. And breakfast.” Cas pauses. “And I still want to suck your cock.”

Dean huffs a laugh, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Yeah. Okay. We’ll, uh. We’ll see what happens.”

There’s a patient nod, at that.

“Yes. In the morning.” He gives Dean a pointed look. “Now hold me.”

Dean’s anxiety retreats a little, and he laughs again, crawling onto the bed and easing down beside him.

Cas immediately turns onto his side, curling into Dean.

“Arms,” he reminds him, and Dean tucks one over him, drawing him a little closer. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” Dean whispers, tilting his chin up to kiss Cas’s forehead. “My pleasure.”

Cas’s hands touch his sides, fingers curling into his jacket.

And then, after a moment:

“I don’t want you to leave me.”

Dean stills.

“You, uh. You’ll probably fall asleep soon.”

“I’ll know,” Cas murmurs. “And I’ll miss you. Asleep or not.”

Once again, Dean doesn’t know what to say.

“There’s still tomorrow night. We can sleep together then.”

“True,” Cas agrees, patting him. “That _is_ what makes it bearable. You always come back.”

Dean lies there, careful and still, utterly lost.

“Good night,” Cas says after a moment. “I’ll . . . see you in the morning.”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“Yeah. We’ll have breakfast,” he adds, kissing him again, a soft touch to his lips this time. “Good night, Cas.”

Cas smiles, warm and sweet, and kisses him back.

He’s asleep within minutes.

A few hours later, Cas wakes up alone, mouth fouler than he thinks it’s ever been, in the wrong bed to a clock that reads half past ten.

It takes him a moment to remember how he got there, and when he does, he scowls, struggling upright.

He’d thought, at the time, head admittedly fuzzy, that Dean was being unfair.

Now that he’s sober, however _—_

He _knows_ it.

(Although it’s probably for the best that he hadn’t actually tried sucking anything.)

Anyway, he dons a nightgown at random, throwing Dean’s grey robe on top of it, and retreats downstairs to see if anyone is awake, or if they’ve even made it home. He’s glad Dean took him away early, even if the memories are less clear than he’d like them to be, but he should have taken Cas to _Bobby’s,_ not Mills Park.

(And _then_ he should have given Cas an orgasm. Now in his right mind, Cas is somewhat concerned by the fact that he _didn’t,_ but he also vaguely recalls some sort of reassurance that he was special — and was that a promise not to think of others, or did Cas dream that? — so he decides not to worry about.)

“Shh,” Lucy warns as he enters, and though he initially assumes she’s protecting Katherine’s sleep, he quickly identifies at least four slumbering bodies sprawled in various places across the parlor.

“Oh.”

She shakes her head.

“Carried away, all of them.”

Billie, despite her own presence at the tavern, is perfectly upright in the armchair, reading glasses on, and since the throws are already claimed by the others, Cas reluctantly shrugs out of Dean’s robe on his way over to drape it over Max where she’s curled over the table, snoring softly. She has her pen and sketchbook out, and Cas just hopes she won’t wake up with any ink marks on her cheek (or worse, smudged drawings).

“Maybe I should put her to bed,” he mutters, frowning at the uncomfortable position — Susan and Meredith, at least, are very economically sharing the wide parlor sofa, Vivian curled comfortably with a pillow by the fire — and Billie hums.

“She hasn’t been asleep long. If she’s still out in a little while, you could consider it, though. They’ve been drifting in and out since we came home.”

“Ah.” Cas gives Max one last assessing glance, then nods, taking the smaller chair across from Billie. “Did you all enjoy yourselves?”

Billie raises a brow, looking around the room.

“You could say that.” She pauses. “I believe Susan arranged a meeting with her barkeep.”

Cas brightens.

“The man who bandaged my knuckles for me?”

“I believe so.”

“He seemed nice. She liked him before, too.”

Billie smiles.

“She did.”

Max shifts, then, mumbling something, and her pen goes rolling off the table, clattering to the floor. They both look at her expectantly, but she simply turns her head further into her arms and goes back to snoring.

Billie cocks her head.

“On second thought _—_ you may have had the right idea.”

Cas sighs, leaning forward to pick up the pen.

“Perhaps.” He looks at it for a moment, then reaches over to set it back on the table. “That was very kind of you, by the way. To give Max the sketching book.”

“Kind,” she muses. “I suppose you could call it that.”

Cas gives her a questioning look, and she watches him for a moment, considering.

“You know, Castiel,” she eventually starts. “Something your sister tells the people who come to hear her speak is that we’ve all had everything taken from us. It’s effective, and it addresses the point that needs to be heard, but — it’s not the whole truth.”

Which, Cas supposes that _technically_ , many of the women here left of their own volition, but he’s starting to think driving someone to make such a choice is as bad as doing the actual taking.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’ve had everything taken away that they _can_ take. There are some things that, as long as you’re breathing — they can’t touch.” She studies the book in her hands, idly drawing a thumb down the edge of the pages. “In life — we rarely have that much control over our situations, even when they turn out well. We often feel powerless; we’re often _made_ powerless.

“But actions always have consequences, Castiel — whether they’re good or bad. And even when you’ve been left with nothing — you might surprise yourself, with what you’re still capable of. With what you can set in motion. And there will always be power in that.”

Cas simply looks back at her, at a loss, and she smiles.

“What I’m saying is — you would be amazed, what a girl with a sketchbook can ultimately bring about.” She pauses again. “Or even a man in a pretty blue dress.”

He starts, surprised.

“I . . . I don’t think I understand,” he says after a moment, and she raises a brow.

“Don’t you?” she asks simply.

He has no idea how to answer that.

After a beat, she nods, shutting her book and getting to her feet.

“Think about it. I believe it’s my bedtime.” She gestures toward Max. “Make sure she gets to bed. She had a long day.”

And with that, Billie says goodnight to Lucy and departs.

Cas stays seated for a while after, just thinking.

And then he rises, and goes to make sure Max does, indeed, get to bed.

“So — so the thing is,” Dean starts the next morning, awkwardly perched next to Cas on the settee, a thin layer of snow on the ground and the accompanying temperature too great a deterrent to breakfast on the terrace, and Cas takes a break from wondering why they’re not in bed having orgasms — he was _sure_ Dean said something about ‘in the morning,’ but he’s not confident enough to remind him — to nod.

“What?”

“I, uh. I actually — I kind of have a meeting at ten?”

Cas blinks.

“At ten?”

“Yeah.”

“In the morning?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“Today?”

Dean swallows, and this time, simply nods.

Cas frowns at him.

“So — in an hour.”

“I — yeah. And then another one at noon. But then I’m free, I promise.”

Cas grimaces, trying to figure out how to complain about this in an appropriately reasonable way.

“Sorry,” Dean adds, looking genuinely apologetic, and Cas’s ire fades.

He sighs.

“It’s fine. I’ll — see you after, I suppose.”

“I’ll come straight here,” Dean says quickly, then grins. “Just — don’t get arrested again.”

Cas shrugs.

“I don’t know, Dean. If someone tries to abduct another member of the household, I might have to.”

Dean snorts, though he gives Cas a warm look.

“Fair.” He pauses, sobering a little. “So . . . how much do you remember about what we talked about last night?”

Cas hesitates.

“I still want to suck your cock,” he offers, and Dean chokes.

“Uh. Not — that’s not what I meant. But — you know, that’s good to know, too.” He clears his throat. “Actually — you remember what happened, right? You feel okay with it?”

“No,” Cas answers honestly, and Dean tenses. “I still think you should have given me an orgasm.”

Dean’s expression flattens, and then he sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Cas. You’re not allowed to — to touch drunk people like that. It’s a thing.”

“But I wanted you to.”

“Right, but — things were kind of fuzzy, right? Sometimes drunk people go with something on a whim, ‘cause their head’s not clear, and when it is, they don’t feel good about it.”

“Alright, ” Cas agrees patiently. “But I _always_ want orgasms from you.”

Dean just looks at him.

“Well, I can’t touch you when you’re drunk. End of story.”

Which — that is the _last_ time Cas ever gets drunk, if this is going to be the cost.

(Though what happened was still rather nice.)

“Fine,” he mutters. “After your meetings, though.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“After my meetings,” he concedes, and Cas relaxes, leaning into him a little more. “And — I guess we’ll talk about the other stuff then, too?”

“We can talk about them now, if you like,” Cas offers, a little wary, but Dean shakes his head.

“Nah. Let’s just enjoy breakfast.”

It gives Cas pause — it makes it sound like this talk is going to interfere with their enjoyment of breakfast, which means it probably isn’t quite good — but Dean doesn’t seem concerned.

Still . . .

Cas is glad Dean will be back in a few hours to resolve it.

He enjoys breakfast, enjoys the kisses that follow, enjoys the way Dean’s nervous glances toward the entry to the parlor cease after a few minutes, focus wholly devoted to tugging Cas into his lap and doing very nice things to his neck, but once Dean is hastily tucking his shirt back in and retying his cravat, off to the magistrate’s office to conduct his business —

Cas worries about it.

There’s a knock at the front door shortly before noon, and though Cas is briefly hopeful that Dean’s second meeting was canceled, it turns out to be Samandriel, hovering on the doorstep and looking strangely determined.

Cas is fairly certain that’s a smudge of flour on his face, a vaguely dusty cast to his hair, although he’s not in his work clothes.

“Hello,” he greets him, surprised. “You don’t usually visit when Dean is.”

“Yes, because I don’t usually want to make things awkward for you.” He purses his lips. “But I saw him at the magistrate’s office and I thought we could talk. Over tea. If you have time.”

Samandriel’s atmosphere is unusually severe, though even if it weren’t, the minutes are passing like particularly unambitious snails, and he likes the idea of company while he waits.

“Of course. Is everything alright?”

Samandriel hesitates.

“Yes and no? I just — I think — it’s time I spoke plainly to you,” he insists, and there’s a soft meow from behind Cas.

“Oh, child,” Lucy says, appearing beside Cas and looking dismayed. “I really don’t think this is the time to be declaring yourself again.”

“What?” Samandriel withdraws, alarmed. “No — that — that’s not what I meant!”

“What else could you need to be speaking plainly about?” Lucy wonders, lifting her brows. “Castiel speaks plainly enough for everyone.”

Cas frowns, not quite sure how to take that, but Samandriel just shakes his head, agitated.

“But it’s not _his_ plainness that’s in question — it’s the rest of ours! This is — well, this is getting ridiculous! And it needs to stop!”

Lucy nods slowly, patting Katherine’s head.

“I see. Why don’t you both have a seat in the parlor, and I’ll fix you a pot of tea while you calm down a bit?”

Samandriel scowls.

“I _am_ calm,” he protests, and she nods again.

“Of course you are, dear. Still. A cup of tea never hurts.”

She swiftly retreats back into the house, and Cas gestures Samandriel inside, toward the parlor, where he reluctantly sits in a chair.

“What did you want to — speak plainly, about?” Cas asks, admittedly curious, and Samandriel tenses, fingers curling over his trouser knees.

“I just — look, it’s about his highness.”

“Dean?”

“Yes. And — his behavior toward you.”

Cas thinks of last night, of Dean standing upsettingly far away, staring into the corner while Cas had his orgasm alone, and while his impulse is to agree that there’s a problem with that, he doesn’t see how Samandriel could possibly know.

“What about his behavior?” he asks cautiously, and Samandriel huffs.

“It’s — it — well, it isn’t _right,_ Castiel. I may not be a — a worldly, experienced man, in these matters, but I do know some things and — and there’s an appropriate distance meant to be maintained in these kinds of affairs! But he _doesn’t!”_ Samandriel takes a deep breath. “And I don’t think you know you’re _having_ an affair! Which — how could you, when he’s obviously _courting_ you? It — it’s unacceptable! And no one has told you!”

Cas squints, struggling to follow.

“What?”

“And I — I have tried to keep my tongue, because it isn’t my business, and you clearly don’t want to hear anything said against him, but even _Charlotte_ thinks he’s going to — when it’s clear he’s just — because if he were, then he’d _tell_ you, but you — best friends!” Samandriel exclaims, blue eyes despairing. “ _Best_. _Friends._ ”

The boy is clearly overwrought; Cas hopes Lucy comes with the tea soon.

“Yes,” he says slowly. “Dean and I are best friends.”

Samandriel gives him a frustrated look.

“Yes, but — but that’s not _all_ you are!”

Cas blinks.

And then he smiles.

“Well, no. We, um. We’re also ‘lovers.’”

Samandriel’s shoulders sag.

“Oh.” He takes a deep breath, calming slightly. “So — so he’s told you he loves you, at least?”

Cas makes a face.

“Not those kind of lovers.”

Samandriel just looks incredulous.

“ What other kind _is_ there?”

“The kind that visit and do sex with one another?”

Samandriel gapes, cheeks rapidly turning crimson.

“That — that—" He stops, taking a deep breath. “ You know what? His highness is a _cad._ ”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“He isn’t.”

“He _is!_ That — what you said would be _fine,_ if he were open with you, but — you have no idea what’s going on, do you?!”

Cas scowls.

“I do, actually. Dean has been _incredibly_ clear and communicative with me. More so now than I’d previously ever known him to be.” Cas glances toward the door. “I’m happy to converse with you about other things, but if this is what you came to say—"

“I came to say what you need to hear! Because no one _else_ will! And whether you think he’s in the wrong or not, he’s taking advantage and he _knows_ it!”

“Samandriel,” Cas says tiredly, but Samandriel stands.

“No! You told me you loved him!”

“And I do, however, that’s not relev —"

“Yes, it is!” Samandriel interrupts. “Castiel, the whole of Sioux Falls thinks he’s going to _marry_ you!”

Cas stops short.

“Excuse me?”

“They think he’s going to marry you. And mate you,” Samandriel adds bluntly. “And he _knows._ He knows exactly what he’s doing, and what people think of it, and he knows you _don’t,_ and he’s doing it anyway!”

“I can’t speak for anyone in town, but — Samandriel, Dean can’t mate or marry anyone, least of all me. The notion is ridiculous.”

“And I would accept that,” Samandriel retorts. “But you think — you think you’re best friends who — who have sex!”

Cas squints.

“Because we are.”

Samandriel buries his face in his hands.

“This! This is why he’s a cad!” He lifts his head, distraught. “Do you remember that day at the bakery? When I called him indelicate?”

“I do,” Cas says, immediately irritated. “You upset him. And you were wrong.”

“I wasn’t,” Samandriel retorts hotly. “I provoked him _deliberately,_ Castiel, to the absolute best of my ability — and he _still_ had nothing to say for himself. He apparently said nothing to _you._ Do you know why? Because he _knows_ he’s wrong. He was being a cad, and he’s still a cad, and I don’t care if you like him as a shameless scoundrel! What he’s doing _is_ wrong, and letting him get away with it means he’s going to try and get away with all kinds of things in the future, and even if it didn’t — you deserve better!”

“In what way?” Cas demands. “In what way is he wrong? In what way could I possibly deserve better than this? You know nothing of it, Samandriel.”

“I know enough!” he insists. “Castiel, his highness is behaving like he intends to have a _future_ with you, and everyone thinks he _will!_ But has he _told_ you that? Has he talked about — anything? Or is he just letting you think these are reasonable things for _friends_?”

Cas grits his teeth, fast losing patience.

“Samandriel — they _are_. Dean _did_ explain things, very clearly, and neither of us do anything we don’t both enjoy. That is all that is required to make them acceptable. As for a future together . . . we’re friends. We’ll see each other. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s all I expect.”

Samandriel deflates a little, then, gaze turned searching.

“You don’t — you aren’t hopeful? For mating? For marriage?”

Cas experiences a slight twinge, at that, but he shakes it off.

“No, and more importantly, I’m not stupid.” Youth are incredibly naive, Cas is learning. They all seem to think Cas is living in a romance novel, but Cas is not a heroine, and Dean is not in love with him, and stories meant for entertainment are just that. People write about _fairies,_ as he pointed out to the others; clearly, novels have no basis in reality. “Samandriel — Dean is the crown prince of Winchester. He would be lucky if they let him marry at all. He neither wants to, or would be allowed, to marry me.”

Samandriel narrows his eyes.

“So he expects to visit you, and — and do intimate things with you, and he doesn’t care how you’ll feel when he leaves for good? Because you can _say_ you have no expectations, but even if someone claims they have no intentions — actions have consequences. You’ll respond to what he does more than he says, and what he’s _doing_ is — is leading you on. He behaves like he loves you.” He takes a deep breath. “And worse, he behaves like he wants you to love him.”

Cas swallows, trying not to think of Dean touching his face, holding him, calling him a treasure.

“We’re best friends,” he mutters. “We’re dear to each other.”

“But that’s not the same,” Samandriel presses, and then he stands, quickly moving to sit on the coffee table, taking Cas’s hands in his and catching his eye. “And if _you_ want more — you should be able to ask for it. Even if he is a shameless scoundrel, that doesn’t mean he can’t still be an honorable man. He should try to give it to you or explain why he won’t, but he shouldn’t keep you in the dark and pretend this is _normal!_ ”

And usually, Cas would agree that yes, you could ask Dean anything, but . . .

“Won’t that — disturb things? What we have?”

Samandriel frowns at him.

“I don’t think so. Not unless you tell him you don’t want to see him, if he doesn’t give you more.”

Cas frowns back.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, then — it should be a win-win situation for his highness! If he says no, at least you’re on the same page and he doesn’t need to feel guilty. Apart from that — there’s no reason he wouldn’t keep coming to see you, so long as you were willing to receive him!”

“Really?” Cas asks, doubtful, and Samandriel squeezes his hands.

“And this is why he’s a cad! It’s just _dastardly_ to pretend he only does it because you’re friends! That isn’t how he behaves, and you deserve to have him be open with you, even if he can’t do anything about it! And you should ask for that!” Samandriel clears his throat, suddenly looking a little guilty. “If that’s what you decide to do, of course. It is — as always, it’s your decision. But — you deserve to know what these things usually mean, damn it. And you’re entitled to ask him to make them clear.”

Cas hesitates.

“But — our situation is unique. I don’t think there’s a — a ‘usual’ for us. And — aren’t things clear enough?”

Samandriel is silent for a moment, and then he gives Cas a serious look.

“Alright. Have _you_ told him you loved him?”

Cas looks away.

“No. Of course not.”

“Then they’re _not_ clear,” Samandriel insists. “And you shouldn’t have to be afraid to make it so.”

“That’s simple for you to say,” Cas protests. Samandriel is a privileged alpha, and he does things like traveling to the capital to address the king and — apparently — provoking princes and making marriage proposals to people oblivious to his interest. “Actions _do_ have consequences, and the ones mine have tend to be significant.”

Samandriel’s jaw tightens.

And then he stands.

“Castiel!” he expostulates. “You lifted a carriage off my sister!”

Cas blinks up at him, startled.

“What does that have to do w—"

“A lot of people tell your sister she’s _nuts_! Even the girls who come here — they say this is just how things are! Working in the bakery, if I had a shilling for every time I heard someone say, ‘well, what can you do?’, I wouldn’t _need_ my inheritance! And if you’d asked anyone — even _me_ , if it hadn’t been my own sister underneath that carriage — they would have told you not to bother! To just — wait for help.” Samandriel looks at him, imploring. “You didn’t ask, though. You just _did_. You just _tried._ Because maybe sometimes, there really isn’t anything you can do — but it’s still worth trying. And you _do,_ Castiel. You lift carriages and you make pies for your captor and you send horrible husbands packing, because that’s just who you _are,_ and when it comes to your own happiness? That is the last place you should just be _accepting_ whatever happens!”

Cas has no idea what to say to that. He’s wrong and he isn’t and Cas is suddenly very confused about which it actually is.

“If you’re willing to try for everyone else, then you should try for yourself,” Samandriel insists, quiet. “ And you deserve to ask for more — for everything you want. And his highness owes it to you to answer honestly, one way or another.”

It’s terrifying.

Asking for the touches is becoming easy, because Dean doesn’t deny him, and even if he did, he promises not to judge him for it. And at an extreme, touches are something Cas can do without, even if he wants them.

But Samandriel is suggesting he ask for the intangible things, for — for _commitments,_ for feelings Dean can’t control, even should he want to, and Cas doesn’t see how he can imagine there’s no risk to that.

Cas is already happy, isn’t he? He doesn’t need more. After how he’s lived his life, getting all of this —

How could he _possibly_ need more?

“Think about it,” Samandriel says abruptly, watching him, intent. “Just think about it, Castiel. His highness might be a coward, but — you’re not.”

_That was brave._

He told Max it was an honor, to be brave for her, and it was. Had he miscalculated, had he ended up the one in need of a doctor, he doesn’t think he’d feel any differently, because the alternative was so much worse.

But this — _confronting_ Dean over this — is infinitely more terrifying than the possibility of simply being beaten, and since the alternative is just continuing as they are, in this wonderful routine they’ve developed —

Cas isn’t sure he _can_ be brave.

Anyway, Lucy comes in with the tea, then, gaze awkwardly averted, and they largely drink in silence, though Samandriel makes a few weak efforts at conversation.

He excuses himself to return to work, not long after , and Cas cleans up , then retreats to his room to wash his face, still restless from their talk.

And then —

He lies down while he waits, staring at the ceiling, and he thinks about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Potentially Dubious Consent: Cas gets drunk, and despite their original plans to stay at Bobby’s, Dean takes him back to Mills Park, feeling that Cas should stay in his own room and sleep it off. Cas tries very hard to convince Dean to engage in some form of sex with him, but Dean refuses to touch him on the grounds that he is drunk. However, as Cas pushes, Dean finally snaps and agrees to talk Cas through giving himself an orgasm, standing in a corner and staring at the wall while it happens. While Cas is of sound enough mind to enthusiastically follow these instructions, to the point of doing things Dean hasn’t specifically told him to do to himself, it is fair to feel that Dean should have avoided being part of any sexual act that took place, whether he touched Cas or not. I was comfortable with this, given their history and my own assessment of Cas’s state/what his feelings about it would be, in addition to how I thought Dean would assess the situation, but again, it is totally fair to classify this as dub-con, so please proceed with caution.
> 
> Sexual Content: Drunk, Cas insistently expresses how aroused he is and how much he wants Dean to give him an orgasm, and Dean eventually caves and agrees to instruct Cas in giving himself an orgasm. He stands in a corner, staring at the wall, and talks Cas through caressing himself, touching his nipples, and using his slick to touch his cock. Cas asks Dean what he uses, since Dean doesn’t slick, and Dean confirms that he uses oil. Cas notes that he prefers slick, which Dean agrees with, and Cas offers Dean some of his slick, commenting that he hates having an orgasm when Dean doesn’t. Dean points out that it doesn’t keep, but Cas convinces him to bring him an empty lotion jar from the dresser, into which he presumably puts some of his slick. When Dean takes it to him, he sees that Cas is fingering himself, and once he’s returned to the corner, he asks Cas how many fingers he’s using and suggests he try three. Cas reaches orgasm shortly after.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: explicit sexual content (major scene marked *** at the beginning and end, though there is mature content in the scene leading up to it; there’s some important conversation there, but if you’d like me to summarize it and mark that scene, too, let me know), references to mpreg, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Sorry about the long delay, your author is not doing so great right now, and this needed a lot of rewrites (and probably still needs more, but I’ve already thrown out over twenty thousand words and if I keep trying, I’ll probably never finish the story, so. Alas, here we are). Thank you very much for your patience, and I hope you’re all doing well and hanging in there ♡

According to Billie, Cas was taking a nap when she passed his door on her way down, and though Dean’s a little disappointed, he figures he can wait. The kid — Max, Dean’s pretty sure — is in the parlor, quietly drawing in a sketchbook, and Dean sits in bored silence for a little bit, nursing a cup of tea, before he decides ‘fuck it’ and wanders over.

“Afternoon,” he greets her, plopping into the chair catty-corner, and she pauses, pulling her sketchbook a little closer. “Max, right?”

“Good afternoon, your highness,” she says, giving him a cautious look. “And yes, that’s right.”

He tries a friendly, non-threatening smile.

“Awesome. But you can call me Dean, if you want.”

After a beat, she nods.

“Alright. Thank you.”

“Sure. Whatcha drawing?”

There’s a small frown, at that, and he blinks back innocently, until finally, she purses her lips.

“A story.”

“Yeah? Neat. What’s it about?”

She narrows her eyes a little, and as bored and legitimately curious as he might be, he wonders if this is might be his cue to back off. If he’s not mistaken, Max actually had a pretty shit day yesterday, and she probably doesn’t want some strange dude lurking in the parlor and nosing into her business just because Cas isn’t ready to come play with him and he’s getting restless.

“Death,” she mutters, and Dean pauses.

“Sorry?”

“It’s about Death,” she clarifies, though she starts drawing again. “She runs the library between worlds.”

“Oh. Cool.” He props his chin on his elbow, though he politely avoids trying to look. “Who, uh. Who’s the clientele for that, anyway?”

Her lips quirk slightly.

“Well,” she says. “All the books are the stories of all the beings that die. But — the customers are actually all souls waiting to transition to their afterlife. They can’t do it until they find their book and remember who they are.”

“Huh. How do they find it, then?”

“They have to read others’ stories, first. To understand the things they didn’t learn before they died — to become ready. And when they’re finished — the next book they find will be theirs.”

“Magic,” he supplies, and she nods. “Awesome. But — the story’s about Death?”

“Yes. She falls in love,” Max says simply. “And she hides his book, so he’ll have to stay in the library with her forever.”

Dean swallows, suddenly feeling uneasy.

“Oh. That, uh. That’s a little dark.” He hesitates. “What about him? Does he — does he love her back?”

“He does,” Max assures him. “Even though she thinks he doesn’t know any better.”

Dean furrows his brow.

“She thinks?”

Max smiles.

“He reads book after book after book, and he even becomes an expert at helping the customers find the books they need to read next. But Death starts to feel more and more guilty, as time goes on, and eventually — she confesses what she’s done.”

Dean nods.

“And? What, uh. What does he say?”

“Well, he knows.” She pauses. “I haven’t got to that part yet, but — his was the second book he found. He’s known the whole time.”

Dean absorbs that, then opens his mouth.

“What was the first book?”

She gives him a pleased look.

“Hers.”

Dean starts.

“But isn’t she—"

“She is. For now. Not always, though.” Max sets her pen down, though she doesn’t look up from the page. “He tells her — she led a very lonely life, where she always put others first. And the reason she’s never moved on, is because she _couldn’t_ learn what she needed from the books.”

“What’s that?”

“How to be selfish,” Max says slowly. “She needed to learn how to be selfish. She was lonely, because she didn’t want to burden others. But she can’t move on until she learns how to accept the things other want to give her. How to fight for them.”

“Oh.”

They’re quiet for a moment.

“I, uh. I assume this story has a happy ending, right?” Dean jokes, and Max studies him for a long, uncomfortable moment before she nods.

“It does.”

“Oh, good.” He clears his throat. “But — it sounds really cool. And — you’re illustrating it?”

She nods again.

“I’m trying, anyway.” She pauses, then gives him a look that’s somehow calculating and nervous all at once. “Actually — I have one more panel to draw on this page. Would you please get me a cup of tea?”

He blinks, a little surprised, but then, she’s doing a cool thing and Dean wouldn’t mind a moment to regroup, and since he’s just sitting around waiting for Cas, anyway—

Why not?

“Yeah, sure.” He scoots his chair back, heading for the coffee table. “How do you want it?”

“With milk, please.”

“I’m on it.” He pours the tea, reaching for the milk, and suddenly she clears her throat.

“And a spoonful of honey.” She pauses. “And . . . two sugars. Please.”

Dean smiles.

“Cas likes it sweet, too.”

“He does. But he drinks coffee,” she adds, a wealth of unspoken judgment in the word, and Dean suppresses a snort, spooning the honey in.

When he’s finished, he brings it back to her, and she looks at it for a long moment, contemplative.

Then she sort of nods to herself, reaching out to take it.

“Thank you very much, your highness.”

 _Weird kid,_ Dean thinks.

Still. There’s something a little endearing about it (even if her story’s kind of creepy) and he figures he could have worse company while he waits.

“You let me sleep again,” Cas complains, reaching for Dean’s hand and tugging him off the settee without so much as a greeting. “I didn’t need a nap.”

“I mean. If you were tired enough to fall asleep—" Dean starts, and Cas narrows his eyes.

“A conversation I had wore me out. But I didn’t need to sleep.” He nods in the direction of the puzzle table as he pulls Dean toward the doorway. “Hello, Max.”

She glances up, smiling.

“Hi, Castiel. Have a nice afternoon.”

“Thank you. You, too,” he returns, smiling back, and then he firmly ushers Dean into the hall, Dean offering Max a small wave on their way out.

“What’s this about a conversation?” he asks, once they’re halfway to the foyer, and after a beat, Cas shakes his head.

“It isn’t important. It was just tiresome.” He clears his throat. “I still have my bag ready, assuming there isn’t some other nonsense reason I can’t stay over.”

Dean lets out a startled laugh.

“Dude. It wasn’t _nonsense_. People would’ve thought the worst if I’d taken you back with me.”

Cas just rolls his eyes.

“I don’t care what people think, Dean.” He grimaces. “People think a lot of strange things. I’d prefer not to deal with any of them.”

“Uh.” Worry creeps back into Dean’s face. “Did . . . did something happen?”

“No,” Cas says shortly. “Well, except for a completely unnecessary nap.”

“Cas.”

“Dean,” Cas returns, giving the stairs a pointed look. “Will you take me tonight or not?”

Dean coughs, shifting, and Cas narrows his eyes. He’d asked, but if the answer is seriously going to be _no_ _—_

“I . . . will drive you to Bobby’s so you can stay over, yeah.”

Cas relaxes, satisfied.

“Alright. Wait here.”

It takes him less than a minute to run upstairs and grab his bag. Dean smiles when Cas reappears, offering a hand to take it — Cas stares for a long moment, the bag small and light in his own grasp, and then just squints until Dean starts laughing and goes to open the door instead — and only once they’re in the carriage does the strange tension beneath his skin start to ease.

Dean is going to take him to Bobby’s, and they’ll be together until Cas has to leave for work in the morning, and regardless of impassioned speeches borne from disagreeable youthful fancy, it will be enough for now.

Because all Cas wants — all he _ever_ wants — is to be together. It is the most just and rational thing he can imagine, for he and Dean, and even if there are times when it’s not quite possible . . .

So long as that is the state they inevitably return to, things are already as they should be. Cas has _already_ tried, already _fought_ , already been selfish, and he’s come away with more than he ever even knew to hope for.

And this, what he has, Dean sitting across from him in the carriage _—_ Dean due to come back, again and again and again, because Cas is _special_ to him — this _is_ his happiness.

Isn’t it?

“Hey,” Dean says softly, and only then does Cas realize he’s been staring. “Everything okay?”

“I . . . yes? Yes,” he repeats, more firmly. “It’s very good.”

“Very good,” he echoes, brow creasing. “You sure?”

“Yes,” Cas insists, then rises, quickly changing to sit on the other side. “I should have sat beside you.”

Dean’s expression smoothes, and he leans in, shoulder pressing against Cas’s.

“Ah. Big oversight,” he agrees, smiling, cheeks a little pink in the winter light filtering through the windows. “But, uh. You sure that’s all?”

Cas swallows, unable to answer for a moment.

“No,” he finally says, and Dean’s smile slips. “I wanted to know if it kept.”

“Huh?”

“My slick. You took it with you. Did you use it?”

Dean’s mouth falls open, soft lips parting in a way that makes Cas want to lean in and kiss him, though they’re in the middle of a conversation.

(Next time he sees Samandriel, he’s making a strict rule that they won’t discuss Dean. Cas allowed himself to be unsettled for _nothing_.)

“I _—_ yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Cas tilts his head, still admiring Dean’s mouth, suddenly conscious of all the things he expected from the morning and did not get.

“Good.”

After a moment, Dean’s tongue darts out, sweeping across his lower lip, and Cas suppresses an envious sigh.

“You’re not gonna ask me how?”

At last, Cas meets his eyes.

“You put it on your penis and stroked yourself until you had an orgasm,” he supplies, puzzled — it’s rather obvious — and Dean huffs.

“I — yeah, I did, but — damn it. Never mind.”

Cas frowns.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Dean sighs, then smiles at him, reaching for his hand. “What do you want for dinner, anyway? Think it’s still early enough to put in a request to the kitchen.”

“Dean,” Cas protests, frustrated. “Don’t — don’t say _nothing._ Tell me what you were going to say.”

Dean makes a face.

“Something dumb that I don’t think you’re interested in,” he says, predictably vague. “So — dinner?”

Cas slumps back against the seat, crossing his arms.

“No. I’m not eating until you tell me.”

“ _Seriously_ ? Are we _ten_?”

“You certainly behave like a child, sometimes,” Cas mutters pointedly, although — perhaps he is a little more on edge than usual.

“Oh, my _God_ ,” Dean groans. “I — it was supposed to be sexy! You asked me about using your slick and I was gonna tell you dirty things, and then maybe you’d get turned on and we could at least make out before dinner or something, okay? But you don’t seem that into the idea of me jerking off, _so_ — I’m not gonna bore you with the details.”

“Oh.” Cas swallows, processing that (or what he understands of it, anyway). “I — I’m sorry? You can tell me, if you want. I’d like to ‘make out’ before dinner, either way.”

Dean looks at once fond and exasperated, the first thing reassuring, at least, and shakes his head.

“It’s fine. Just — you made a big deal out of wanting me to take it and have an orgasm, so I figured you might wanna hear about it, too. But if you’re not interested, it doesn’t matter.”

Cas hesitates, at a loss.

“Tell me, anyway.”

Dean puts a hand on his face.

“It’ll be way too awkward now, Cas, trust me.”

“I just — I don’t understand. I know what you did. It’s the same thing I do.”

Dean goes still, at that, and when his hand drops, he looks troubled.

“So . . . when you think about me touching myself, you — you don’t feel any different than if you think about you touching yourself?”

“I—" Cas hesitates, unsure. “I don’t give either much thought.”

Dean bites his lip.

“Okay. Do you . . . could you? Really quick? And tell me?”

“Why does it matter?”

“It doesn’t, I just — it’d be nice to know.”

“So it _does_.”

Dean winces.

“You know what? You’re right. Forget it. Let’s just — go make out and eat dinner, okay? We can play some gin. You like gin.”

Cas gives him a horrified look.

“Instead of orgasms?”

“What? Uh. That’s — up to you?”

There’s a rush of anxiety, at that.

“Do you not want them?” Upset crashes through him, sudden and disproportionate. “We’re not supposed to do it if you don’t. It can’t just be up to me.”

“What? I — it’s not — I _do_ want them, I just — I’m just saying I’m okay if we do and I’m okay if we don’t.” Dean frowns. “Are _you_ okay? You seem—"

He cuts off, frowning harder, and Cas bristles.

“What? I seem _what,_ Dean?” Dean hesitates, and Cas narrows his eyes, fists clenching. “You — you have to stop saying things without explaining. It’s confusing, and — I hate wondering. I hate that you do that.”

Even as he speaks, he feels angry at himself, dissatisfied with the words, however true they might be, and he’s even more so when Dean draws back, looking a little stunned.

“Right. Uh. Yeah, you — you said that, once. You wished I was more like Sam.”

“I told you I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Sure, but — it’s a problem. That I’m like this.”

Cas grits his teeth.

“I don’t want to have this conversation,” he mutters, staring at the floor. “I don’t want to have any conversations. I want to make out and eat dinner and have orgasms.”

He wishes Samandriel had simply abided by his policy of not visiting when Dean was. If Cas could just have had more time to shake off the unease he’d caused, to reason away his absurdity in full, he wouldn’t be feeling so badly and he wouldn’t be spoiling his time with Dean.

He doesn’t understand why everyone insists on trying to intrude, why they all seem, one way or another, to want to ruin this for him, when it’s so good as it is.

When he’s finally _happy._

“Cas?” There’s a soft touch to his shoulder, and he flinches, ashamed. “Are you sure you’re doing okay? Is it — is it me? Did I do something?”

“No. No, you do everything I want you to,” Cas insists. “I’m not — I wouldn’t complain about you. I’m happy with you.”

“Okay. But — you hate that I don’t explain myself,” Dean reminds him, and Cas hunches.

“That doesn’t count. That’s just sometimes.”

“Right, but — that doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.” Dean clears his throat, opening his mouth to continue—

But then the carriage slows, Dean swaying forward as a glance out the window shows they’ve arrived, and in that, Cas finds his opportunity.

“Good,” he mumbles, and without waiting for anything further, he pushes open the door and stumbles onto the ground before it’s even fully stopped.

Conversations, he decides grimly, are the _worst._

Dean trails after him in silence, Cas grateful when his memory proves correct and he manages to lead them straight to Dean’s door, and as soon as they’re inside, he fishes the yellow nightgown out of the bag — the lacy blue one is snug beside it, but Cas finds he’s in no mood to wear it — and starts undoing his buttons.

“Put your nightclothes on,” he instructs, just barely remembering to turn before he shrugs out of his shirt, putting his back to the wall. “When is dinner?”

Dean’s just frowning at him, silent, and it’s a few moments before he answers.

“A couple hours.”

“Alright. Can we do sex before then?”

“I . . . don’t think that’s a great idea, right now.”

Cas stills, fingers over his trouser ties.

“Why not? You said you were okay if we did. What changed?”

If anything, Dean’s frown deepens.

“Right. Okay, uh. I think we need to talk.”

Which — Cas is so, _so_ tired of talking. He can tell by Dean’s tone of voice that this isn’t going to be a casual, pleasant conversation, and he’s suddenly reminded that Dean _already_ had something potentially negative to discuss from breakfast this morning, and as awful as he’s already begun to feel, he wants no part in any of it.

Never mind speaking about Dean, Cas is suddenly not sure he ever wants to speak to Samandriel again, _period._

“What if I don’t want to?” he tries, and Dean slowly nods.

“Then . . . we can play some cards, or take another nap, or have some coffee and read for a while, but . . . we definitely need to talk, at some point, and — and probably before we do anything involving orgasms.”

Cas wonders if he shouldn’t have been quite so eager to leave Mills Park, after all. This is nothing like what he anticipated when spending the night with Dean.

“Fine,” he eventually mutters. “Let’s — get it over with.”

Dean just gives him a long, inscrutable look, and then he nods, turning toward his armoire. They finish changing in silence, and when all is said and done, Dean sits on the edge of the bed, beckoning Cas to sit beside him.

Reluctantly, Cas follows.

“Alright. What are we talking about?”

Dean hesitates.

“Uh. First — you obviously don’t have to, but — I would really, really like it if you talked to me about whatever it is that’s upsetting you.”

For a moment, Cas doesn’t answer. The conversation from this morning seems increasingly ridiculous, the more time that passes, and being upset about it is obviously just as stupid; still, for whatever reason, he _is_ upset, and Dean is looking expectant, and if Cas continues to insist nothing happened, he’ll be lucky to end up with kisses, never mind anything else.

“I . . . Samandriel visited. He said things to me that — that were wrong, and that I didn’t appreciate.”

Dean’s on his feet in an instant.

“What? What the _hell_? What did he say?”

Cas squints, briefly distracted by the unmistakable scent of anger in the air, not to mention the almost — _fearful_ look in Dean’s eyes, despite his stiff shoulders and clenched fists.

“Nothing that made sense. He seems to think I should — that I could be happier, and that I should try. But he was wrong,” Cas repeats. “I’m happy with you, just the way things are. It was just — he judged you harshly, and it upset me.”

Dean’s face falls.

“Oh.”

He’s silent, visibly distraught, for several long, terrible seconds.

Then he sits again, shoulders sagging.

“Last night,” he starts, staring at the floor. “Last night, you — you said some things. About — understanding more than I thought you did.”

Cas hesitates.

“That’s probably true,” he agrees, and Dean smiles slightly, though it slips away soon after.

“Alright. And — you said you didn’t expect anything from me.”

“I don’t,” Cas answers, not needing to think about it, because he _has —_ he’s thought about it a lot today, thanks to some very poorly-timed dramatics from Sioux Falls’ youth — and he can say, with confidence, that in reevaluating the situation—

Everything is exactly as it ought to be. _Perhaps_ nothing would change, if Cas asked for more and was denied, but since Cas doesn’t need more, there’s simply no point in asking for it.

And he definitely, _definitely_ doesn’t expect Dean to provide answers, much less anything else.

Dean nods, finally looking up.

“What did you mean by that?”

“I . . . what I said?”

“No, I mean — like. You don’t expect anything, but — if you did? What — what things would you expect?”

_You aren’t hopeful? For mating? For marriage?_

“I — nothing.”

Dean looks frustrated.

“You wouldn’t have said that if you couldn’t think of anything.”

_He behaves like he loves you. And worse, he behaves like he wants you to love him._

Cas looks down.

“I just — I . . . I wish you were here more.”

That, at least, is the truth, and more importantly, it’s one that’s rather simple to admit, if only because it’s one he’s sure Dean already knows.

“Oh.” For a moment, he almost thinks Dean looks _disappointed,_ but there’s no reason for him to be, and Cas chalks it up to his own addled nerves.

“It’s difficult to part with you,” he adds, shoving back other words, words that have no place here, regardless of what young, naive alphas playing at life think. “But I understand that you’re here when you can be. And — you said I was special to you. That’s all I want.”

Cas _does_ love Dean, whether it’s acceptable to say or not; of course he wants more of him.

That doesn’t mean it’s reasonable, or that he needs it.

Dean says nothing for a moment.

“It’s hard for me, too,” he says eventually, and after a beat, he reaches over, taking Cas’s hand. “Really hard.”

“I know,” Cas agrees, because Dean _told_ him.

Because Dean _always_ tells him. Yes, he’s awkward and confusing about small things, but the important things—

He’s clear. If Cas really needs to know it, Dean tells him.

“I, uh. I’m kind of — running out of excuses to come to Mills Park, but — I’ll try to think of something. So I can be here more. And — and if I can’t, if it’s just too hard to swing — I know you’ve got work, and things, but . . . maybe you could visit me?”

Cas straightens.

“You’d let me?”

Dean’s brow creases.

“Let you?” he echoes. “Of course. If you want to — of _course_ . I’ll send a carriage and escorts and everything. This — this is about what _you_ want, Cas. And if you want that — then yeah. Come.”

Cas swallows, heartened by that.

(Not that he needs more, because whether he gets this or not, he _doesn’t._ )

“Alright. I’ll negotiate with Mr. Dryer. I didn’t know that was an option.”

Dean winces.

“Right. Right, and you probably should have, I just — I — you know I don’t mean to — to not tell you things, right? I’m not trying to keep you in the dark, or anything, I just — I want to make sure that, whatever you do — it’s what _you_ want. Okay?”

 _He shouldn’t keep you in the dark and pretend this is_ normal.

“Alright,” Cas says slowly, pulse unsteady. “But — don’t keep me in the dark. I — I just want to be with you, Dean.”

Dean looks at him, searching.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” Cas takes a breath. “Are we normal? Is this — is what we’re doing normal?”

Dean just stares at him for a moment, looking caught.

And then he brings his other hand up, clasping Cas’s between them, and shakes his head.

“No. It’s not, not exactly. But — _we’re_ not.” He clears his throat, squeezing Cas’s hand. “I — I told you how special you were to me, right? You remember that?”

“Yes,” Cas agrees, and he mostly does.

“Okay. Well — I think — what we have, the way we are — I think that’s really special, too.” He licks his lips. “Which means it — it’s not quite normal. But it’s better. Or, at least, it can be. And I — I want to hang onto it. I want to be with you, too. Whenever I can. Whatever that looks like.”

And that — that’s vague, again, but it sounds like it’s vague for Dean, too, and it means that if Dean is keeping him in the dark, it’s only because Dean, himself, is a little in the dark.

Cas can’t expect Dean to tell him things he doesn’t even know himself.

“I want that, too,” he agrees, laying his other hand on top of Dean’s, all four of them forming a neat pile, holding on. “More than anything.”

For a moment, Dean just looks at him.

And then he leans in, pressing his forehead to Cas’s.

“Me, too,” he whispers, lashes tickling over Cas’s skin. “You — you’re not just special, Cas, you’re so important to me. I know I fuck up a lot, but I just — I swear, all I want is to make you happy. For as long as I can.”

Something in Cas settles, then, and he reaches up, touching Dean’s cheek.

“You do. You will,” he adds. “I’ll come to you, if you can’t come to me, and — we’ll be together.”

Dean quickly nods, head tilting as his lips brush against Cas’s.

“Yeah. I — I’d like that. Like it a lot.”

So Cas closes his eyes and kisses him more fully, kisses him until the unease is mostly pushed to the outskirts, until all he cares about in the present is the warmth between them, Dean solid where Cas has freed his hands and wrapped his arms around him — the way Dean said he _liked,_ because Dean _does_ tell him, _always_ tells him — kisses him until Cas has nothing to fear and nothing to be brave over and nothing outside this room even matters.

“What didn’t you tell me in the carriage?” he asks eventually, tucking into Dean’s neck, fingers tugging aside his collar so Cas can rub his cheek along the skin it hides.

“Uh.” He feels Dean swallow, and he twists slightly, brushing over his jaw next. Dean’s hand, slid into his hair at some point, tightens. “Ah — that — uh.”

“Dean?”

“Right, right. Just . . . uh . . . last night, you told me — you suck on your fingers, sometimes, when you touch yourself.”

“I do. And I think about sucking your cock.”

Dean twitches in his arms.

“Nh,” he grunts. “Right. That — uh. That — _really_ turns me on. Thinking about you touching yourself, period, turns me on.”

“You enjoy it?”

“Yeah, but I — I get hard. I wanna touch you, or touch me. And listening to you, last night, knowing what you were doing to yourself — I thought I was gonna come just from hearing about it.”

“Oh.” Cas blinks, a familiar sensation sparking in his gut. “You must have liked it a lot, then.”

Dean huffs a laugh, warm against Cas’s ear.

“You could say that. Anyway . . . in the carriage, I was just — it was stupid, but I kinda thought you might get excited like that, too, if I told you. What I went home and did.”

“Alright,” Cas agrees, stroking his thumb over Dean’s shoulder. “You should tell me, then.”

“I can, but — I didn’t get that you were really interested.”

Cas thinks about it, then, the way he thinks Dean was maybe asking him to in the carriage, when he was trying so hard not to be upset. He thinks about the _how,_ instead of the _what,_ pictures Dean the way Cas gets him sometimes, stripped bare and laid out on the bed, erect penis flushed against his stomach.

“Cas?”

“Quiet,” Cas mutters, suddenly wondering if he should be in Dean’s lap for this. “I’m trying to think about you touching yourself.”

Of course, he’s _assuming_ Dean would lie back to do this, but sometimes lately, Cas likes to get onto his knees, arching into the bed while he touches himself, liking the tight feeling the muscles in his thighs get, the stretch of his back as he rocks to and fro.

“How are you?” he asks, unsure what to picture, but feeling strangely determined to do it right. “How do you lie, when you touch yourself?”

For a moment, Dean is silent.

Then he takes a deep breath, pulling away, and fixes Cas with dark, serious eyes.

“What’s it feel like?” he asks. “Thinking about it, now. How do you feel?”

Cas blinks.

“It feels . . . I feel — hot. I want to sit closer to you. I want to know exactly what you do, so I can — so I can picture it right.”

There’s a flash of tongue, Dean wetting his lower lip.

“Okay. Sounds like you’re a little turned on, Cas.” He inhales. “You smell turned on.”

Cas nods.

“I might be. I want to know,” he repeats, then adds, “But I’d also like you to touch me.”

Dean’s jaw tightens.

And then he’s shifting away, sprawling back against the pillows, beckoning Cas to follow.

“How about I do both?” he offers, voice low and rough in that way, the way that always has heat pooling at the base of Cas’s spine, has his heart tripping inside his chest. “C’mere, Cas.”

Cas quickly crawls after him, straddling his hips, cold-hot sweeping over him as he brushes against the hardness in Dean’s sleepshorts. He can feel his own penis filling, slickness gathering inside him, and he eyes Dean’s hands with anticipation.

“Is this how you lie?”

Those hands land on his hips, fingers curling over the top of his rear, and Cas presses back into them, gratified.

“Sometimes. Not last night, though.”

He slips his own hands beneath the hem of Dean’s shirt, resting them over the warm skin of his stomach, feeling the muscle there pull tight beneath the touch.

“How were you last night?”

“I was facing the bed. Propped up on one elbow. Kneeling a little, but not too much.”

Cas pictures it, as best he can, the long line of Dean’s well-formed back, thighs and buttocks probably tense, to support such a position, and he wishes he were more familiar with what that looked like.

“Anyway,” Dean continues, hands slipping down, slipping over Cas’s thighs, gliding all the way to where Cas’s nightgown bunches at his knees. “I had the jar you gave me.”

Cas holds his breath, twitching as Dean’s fingers slip up under, stroking over his knees.

“And it kept?”

“Yeah. Real well, Cas. I think I just about came from the scent.”

Cas swallows, conscious of the way Dean is slowly pushing the hem up, soft yellow cotton bunching over his thighs.

“You like how my slick smells?”

“Understatement,” Dean breathes out, gaze flicking down as his hands pause. “Where are your drawers, Cas?”

Cas just looks back at him.

“I was hoping something like this would happen. I don’t know why I would dirty a pair unnecessarily.”

Dean narrows his eyes, but there’s a smile tugging at his lips.

“You’re something else, you know that?”

Cas gives him a questioning look, and after a beat, Dean laughs. Then his hands are shifting, squeezing Cas’s thighs, and Cas tenses, a thrill coursing through him.

“You put a lot of your slick in that jar, Cas.”

Cas just nods, relishing Dean’s hold. He tenses, and Dean instinctively grasps tighter, fingertips digging into the muscle in a way that almost tickles.

“There was a lot of it,” he points out, smiling, and Dean grins back.

“Yeah, well, I used it. These are fresh sheets, for the record.”

Cas tilts his head.

“I don’t follow.”

“I made a mess, Cas,” Dean informs him. “I got my hand and my cock all wet with your slick, till they were _dripping_ with it, and then I fucked my fist until I came all over the sheets.”

Cas tenses.

He’s familiar with this vulgarity, with all the many ways Dean uses it, with all the meanings even he couldn’t fail to pick up on, thrown around by traders passing through as it was and now, by various person at the docks — but this is the first time he’s heard Dean use it thus.

“You . . . fucked your fist,” he repeats, and Dean gives a short nod, grip loosening, hands sliding further up.

“Yeah. Do you know what that means?”

Cas nods.

“I do,” he manages, trying to picture it, picture Dean’s bowed spine, back tensed as he thrust his hips forward, penis slipping in and out of his curled hand, wet with Cas’s slick. “That’s a vulgar way to say it.”

“You don’t usually care if I say ‘fuck.’”

“You don’t usually say it this way,” Cas counters. “It makes it sound—"

He cuts off, not entirely sure what follows.

“Makes it sound what, Cas? Dirty? Bad?”

Cas swallows, conscious of Dean’s thumbs brushing over the points of his hips, hands somehow made it all the way up his thighs, disappeared beneath his yellow nightgown in a way that has him flushing hot.

“No. I don’t know. I just — it’s — it sounds different.”

Dean tilts his head.

“I don’t have to use that word.”

“No,” Cas says, confused at himself but distantly confident he doesn’t _not_ want Dean to use that word. “No, I — it’s fine.”

Dean studies him for a moment.

“Well, you can always change your mind.”

Cas nods.

“And — was it good? Doing that, with — with my slick?”

“Yeah, Cas. It was really good. And after the first time, I kept coming.”

“You — kept coming?”

“I did,” Dean confirms, eyes dark. “Felt like being in rut.”

“Oh.” Cas pictures _that_ this time, pictures Dean having his orgasm and continuing to touch himself, pictures him coming _again,_ flushed and panting and dirty with Cas’s slick, and it’s— “Oh.”

“You thinking about it, Cas?”

“I am. I — I like that idea.” Cas looks at him, blinking, another thought occurring to him. “What did _you_ think about?”

Dean’s expression shutters.

“Uh. Just — things we do,” he says, abruptly awkward, a jarring contrast to what his voice was doing before.

Cas frowns.

“You thought of me, right?” He supposes Dean could have thought of nothing, the way Cas used to, but the thought doesn’t please him, and the alternative . . .

“What? Of course I did,” Dean insists. “I just said I did.”

“Yes, but you sounded like you were lying. What did you think about?”

Dean averts his gaze.

“Just — something you and I haven’t done. But still you, Cas. I promise.”

Cas tilts his head, squinting, and then—

_And then I fucked my fist till I came all over it._

A shocked sort of heat suffuses him, and he stares at Dean, stunned.

“Did you . . .”

“What?”

He gulps, neck hot.

"Did you think about — about, um — fucking me?"  


Dean tenses, something panicked flitting across his features as he opens his mouth.

Nothing comes out.

“Oh.” Suddenly, the picture in Cas’s head changes, even fuzzier than the previous one, as all unfamiliar things are when only imagined. “So — do you want—"

“No!” Dean says, abruptly letting go of him, his hands tangling in the skirt of Cas’s nightgown as he hastens to withdraw. “No, I don’t — it’s not — look, the things you think about and the things you want are different, okay? Sometimes they’re — they’re totally unrelated, and a lot of times, you’d never even _want_ the things you fantasized about to actually happen.”

Cas nods slowly.

“Then . . . you’d never want to — to bed me, that way?”

Dean hesitates, gaze so uncertain Cas almost tells him he doesn’t have to answer that.

But then, at last, he says:

“I — I’d want to if _you_ wanted me to.”

Cas blinks.

“Oh.”

And it’s strange, because Cas has thought of this before, so many times, and apart from that moment of panic, the night of the festival, the consequences abruptly clear and terrifying — he’d considered himself prepared.

This is what alphas do, to their omegas. This is what omegas do for their alphas. Regardless of how he might feel about it — it was natural, survivable. And if it was what Dean, ultimately, would ask of him — then he would do it.

His reasons might have changed, since that day Dean came to take him away, but that is always how it’s been.

But when Dean found him at Mills Park — when Cas invited him to finally do it, wanting to give that to him, assuming it was something Dean must, being what he was, desire — a part of him was disappointed, when Dean declined.

He _should_ have been relieved, but he wasn’t.

And now, thinking Dean _would_ want him that way, now that he understands the vital importance of reciprocation in these matters, understands that physical acts are absolutely dependent on want being _mutual_ —

It makes him — he feels _happy._ He feels that sense of relief he expected before, but this time, because he _is_ wanted, after all.

It’s just that he needs to want, too.

“Does it . . . does it feel good?”

Dean’s throat bobs, eyes flicking between Cas’s.

“What?”

“Does it feel good, to be bedded? The way an alpha beds an omega?”

Green eyes widen a fraction.

“I . . . I mean — it depends on who you ask.”

Cas nods.

“What about me? Do you think it will feel good for me?”

Dean swallows, and after a moment, he nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Cas looks down.

“When I put my fingers inside myself, last night — I thought of it. I expected it to hurt, but — it felt better with more. Like the first time you used two, instead of one.” Cas glances back up, studying Dean. “I wondered what it would be like, if it was your penis.”

Dean sucks in a breath.

“Oh.”

“Do you think that will feel better, too?”

Dean blinks a couple of times, something almost like shock in his face.

“I — yeah, Cas. I — I think it will.”

“And . . . we’ll stop, if it doesn’t? If it hurts. And you won’t be angry?”

Dean draws back a little, brow furrowing.

“Of course I won’t. I’d never be mad at you over this kind of thing — _no one_ would be. Unless someone’s not listening to you, or doing something you don’t want — there’s no place for anger when it comes to this stuff, Cas. There’s not supposed to be.”

Cas nods, reassured by that.

“Alright.” He takes a deep breath. “Then . . . I want to try.”

Dean hesitates, resting his hands over Cas’s, warm through the nightshirt.

“Are you sure?”

Cas smiles and wriggles his hands back out, catching Dean’s in them, skin to skin.

“I am. I’d like you to bed me, Dean,” he adds, just to be clear. “Or — if you prefer — please ‘fuck’ me.”

Dean’s jaw goes slack, hands fumbling in Cas’s grasp as his whole body tenses.

“Uh.”

“Is that not it?”

“No. No, it — it is, it’s just — I didn’t — wasn’t expecting it,” he mumbles, squeezing Cas’s hands, blinking rapidly, and Cas takes a moment to admire the flutter of his pretty, pretty lashes. “Okay. Okay, I — so — we’re doing this?”

Cas nods, squeezing back.

“I believe we are.” He breathes in slowly, a little bit of nervousness trickling in. “Alright. Um . . .”

He pauses, and then he lets go of Dean’s hands, awkwardly shifting off of him and getting onto his hands and knees with a questioning look.

“Like this?”

Dean lifts his brows.

“What?”

“I — how should I be? For you to mount me?”

“For me to—" Dean stops, making a face, though it’s quickly covered by his palm. “Uh. No. No, there — I am not — there will be no mounting, Cas.”

“Oh. Alright.” Cas hesitates, then adds, apologetic, “I may not understand how this works, after all.”

There’s silence, followed by a sigh, Dean’s hand slipping off his face.

“Okay. Uh. Look, there — there’s a lot of ways to do this, actually.” He clears his throat. “And — technically, we could do that — except we still wouldn’t call it _mounting_ — but . . . I thought we would face each other.”

Cas settles back on his heels, surprised.

“We can do that?”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“Yeah. Remember — the night of the festival? Before we stopped?”

“Yes, but — I assumed that was a temporary arrangement.” He tilts his head. “I was told to turn over for you.”

Dean screws up his face.

“How about not?” he says kindly, then sits up, running a hand through his hair. “So . . . yeah. I thought — like that. With you underneath me. Or — if you want, you can be on top of me, but — that’s more work for you, and — you might like that better another time, when you’re more familiar with it. I mean — assuming you even wanted to do it again.”

“Alright.” Cas offers him a small smile. “Obviously, I don’t have a preference yet, so . . . I’ll go underneath you. I enjoy kissing you, like that.”

Dean smiles back, softening.

“Okay. Good. ‘Cause I’m about to kiss you a lot.”

“I do recall that being a feature of the process,” Cas murmurs, and Dean laughs, shaking his head as he turns, crawling closer to the edge and reaching for the nightstand drawer.

“There should be a lot of features, if we do it right, but yeah. That’s definitely one of my favorites.”

Cas watches curiously as he rummages through it, eventually withdrawing a small, square paper envelope and tossing it onto the bed. He starts fussing with the pillows, afterward, and Cas forgets all about the envelope, that strange thrill back in his chest as he watches. Soon enough, a little hollow appears, and Dean peels back the blanket, plucking a pillow from the outside of the wall to lay in the center.

“To help prop your hips up,” he explains, and Cas tilts his head.

“Like when you eat me.”

Dean grins.

“Yeah. Like that. It’s all about the angles, buddy.” He pauses, watching Cas for a moment. “Can I take off your nightgown?”

Cas nods. If he’s going to be on his back, it doesn’t matter, and he vastly prefers them skin-to-skin for these activities.

“I want you unclothed, as well,” he warns, and Dean chuckles, reaching for his own shirt first.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

He pulls it off, moving on to fumble free of his sleep pants, and when he’s through, he crawls over to Cas, eyes dark and oddly expectant. Cas rises to his knees, to allow Dean to get the skirt of his nightgown out from under him, but all Dean does is reach out, hands slipping under the hem and coming to rest on the outside of his thighs.

Cas inhales, looking down at him, but Dean says nothing, thumbs lightly stroking over the skin.

“Dean?”

“Sorry.” He licks his lips, glancing up at Cas with a small smile. “Just — I think about this a lot.”

“Oh. Is that . . . good?”

“Is it?” Dean studies him for a moment. “You looked — when I said I’d want this, if you did — you looked kinda happy.”

Cas shrugs.

“I was. I’m always happy, when you want things with me.”

Green eyes blink back at him, and then slowly, Dean nods.

“Awesome,” he says quietly. “I, uh. I want a lot of things with you, Cas.”

 _Not as many as I want with you,_ Cas nearly assures him, the impulse as foolish as it is dangerous, but before he can dwell on it, Dean’s hands glide back down Cas’s thighs and grasp his hem, slowly beginning to ease it up.

And even though there’s no reason for it, even though it makes as little sense as it did the last time Dean undressed him like this, painstakingly nudging the material up Cas’s body, his hands brushing Cas’s legs as they move—

Cas simply watches him, breaths coming faster and pulse racing in time.

***

He experiences a familiar sort of shyness, as the skirt is carefully lifted over his rather conspicuous, hardening length, but Dean continues on without comment, pushing up onto his own knees as he slips the nightgown higher, eyes on Cas’s all the while.

“Arms,” he murmurs, and mouth dry, Cas raises them, a little disappointed as yellow fills his vision. There’s a pause, but just as Cas is about to ask, he feels a puff of warm air against his chest, and _then_ —

His breath catches, Dean’s lips closing over his right nipple, and Cas nearly drops his arms in surprise.

“Ah—"

There’s a fleeting swipe of tongue, and then the heat of Dean’s mouth withdraws, promptly pressing up against the other, and while Cas is confident that this is _not_ how you’re supposed to take off someone else’s nightgown, he bites his lip and diligently keeps his arms high, unsure whether to be relieved or disappointed when Dean presses one last kiss to the center of his chest and finally eases the gown over Cas’s head.

Cas blinks at the sudden return to light, Dean’s face much, much closer than it was before, and as soon as he sees Dean’s gaze drop to his mouth, he instinctively closes his eyes again, lips parting.

There’s a soft sigh as Dean fits his own against them, and Cas breathes it in, kissing back a little more firmly.

“It’s still daylight,” Dean murmurs, hand ghosting over Cas’s arm, and Cas wars with a desire to continue the kiss and a desire to get off his knees and into Dean’s lap, to twine together in the way he so often craves. “I can’t believe I’m gonna make lo—"

Dean cuts off, hand stilling.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just . . . I can’t believe I’m gonna — that we’re gonna do this in the middle of the day. Like this.”

Cas pulls back, just enough to meet his eyes.

“What’s wrong with it?”

Dean shrugs, hand leaving Cas’s arm to rub the back of his own neck.

“I don’t know. I guess I thought — I always pictured it happening in my room back home, late at night. With the fire going, you know? Maybe — shit, I don’t know, with candles and rose petals or something. But we’re at Bobby’s and it’s still light out and I, uh. I didn’t do anything really special or — or romantic.”

Cas slowly nods, absorbing that. He almost points out that there’s a fire in the grate, here, but more importantly than that—

“That makes it sound like you thought about taking me back to the castle.”

Dean freezes.

And then he settles back on his heels, hands resting over his thighs as he looks to the side.

“I mean . . . you said you’d come. It, uh. It wasn’t that far-fetched.” He hesitates, swallowing. “Was it?”

Cas reaches out, clasping Dean’s face in both hands and gently tilting it up, catching his eye.

“You misunderstand,” he says softly. “That isn’t criticism. I just — I wish I’d known. That you might want that.”

Dean gives him a searching look.

“Is it important?”

“To me, yes. But it’s alright. I know, now. And I’ll come.” Cas smiles. “And if this — feels good, like you said . . . you can bed me, there. In whatever setting you desire.”

“Oh.” Dean looks embarrassed, cheeks warm where Cas’s hands fit against them. “You — you know, you’re, uh. Kinda romantic, in your own way.” He licks his lips. “It’s nice.”

Honestly, Cas has no idea what he’s talking about, but if Dean thinks it’s nice—

“I’m glad.” He clears his throat, nodding to the pillows. “I’m going to lie down, then. Unless you want me in your lap, first, like after the festival.”

Dean gives him a wide-eyed look.

“I — whatever you want? Like — if you, uh, if you have any opinions about how we’re doing things, you know, always — always share.”

“Alright.” Cas considers the actual question for a moment, and then he lets go of Dean, moving to grip his bare shoulder for support as he shifts into his lap. Dean immediately moves to make space, catching Cas by the waist as they fit together, and there’s that _look_ in his eyes, the one he gives right before he kisses Cas, that he had, gazing up at him in the pantry, that Cas sometimes catches in the middle of the meal, Dean simply watching him from across the table.

And since Dean asked for _opinions_ —

“I love when you look at me like this,” he whispers, and Dean goes still. “Sometimes -sometimes it feels like I need it.”

And then, too shy to wait for a response, he ducks his head and kisses him.

For a moment, Dean does nothing, but then he shudders, squeezing Cas’s waist and tilting his head as he starts kissing back, soft and earnest, and Cas doesn’t have to think. He parts his lips, inviting Dean in, the way he’s learned to, and when Dean does the same, Cas licks against his tongue with confidence, subtly beginning to rock in Dean’s lap, seeking friction between them, though he knows that won’t be how things end tonight.

Dean sucks in a breath.

“Don’t remember this from the festival,” he murmurs, and Cas smiles, hands smoothing over his back.

“I didn’t know, then, or you would,” he assures him, and Dean lets out a startled snort, a huff against Cas’s lips that quickly turns to breathless laughter. That, too, is a unique, wonderful kind of pleasure, and Cas contents himself with mouthing along Dean’s jaw and throat while he enjoys it.

“Hey.” Dean still sounds amused, though Cas can feel his thighs tensing as he subtly pushes back against Cas’s movements.

“Yes?”

“Can I — last time, you said you liked it, when I bit your shoulder.”

Cas pauses, phantom pleasure ghosting through him at the memory, but then he resumes his rolling motions, debating how to answer.

“I did.” He clears his throat. “While it was still healing — I’d press on it, before the orgasm, and it helped.”

There’s another full-body shudder against him, Dean’s scent spiking where Cas breathes it in, and he can’t help himself.

His shoulders tense, anticipation searing through him.

“Are you going to bite me again, Dean?”

“I — I want to,” Dean says, a little hoarse, his hands sunk to Cas’s hips, squeezing tight. “Did it scar?”

“No. But—" Cas licks at the hollow of Dean’s throat, imagining he can somehow taste the scent on it. “I don’t really care if it does.”

He seals his mouth over the smooth, tender spot, giving it an experimental suck, and Dean shivers.

“I care,” he mumbles, kissing Cas’s shoulder, right where Cas remembers his teeth breaking the skin. “You probably will, too, at some point.”

“I won’t. Kiss my neck, Dean,” he instructs quietly.

After a beat, Dean reaches up, fingers sinking into his hair and gently guiding his head to the side, and Cas just lets it drop, relishing the attention as Dean licks and sucks at the base of his throat, teeth occasionally grazing over that one, perfect spot where Cas wishes Dean could somehow bite him without consequences.

_You aren’t hopeful? For mating? For marriage?”_

He abruptly frowns, grip tightening, and Dean pauses.

“You okay?”

Cas shakes himself.

“I — yes. Sorry.”

“No worries.” Dean kisses his neck again, though just briefly. “You went all tense. Just wanted to make sure.”

“Oh. I just — it felt good,” Cas lies, because that happens often, Dean doing something particularly nice and Cas’s entire body pulling taut as a result.

“Oh. Okay. Awesome.” Dean makes a soft sound, rubbing his cheek against Cas’s neck. “You smell really fucking good, Cas.”

Cas relaxes with a sigh, suppressing a shiver as Dean nuzzles against his jaw next.

“Thank you. I’m glad you like my scent.” He wonders if it makes Dean enjoy kissing him more, the way Cas enjoys kissing him, enjoys being surrounded by woods and spice and Dean’s clear, unmistakable contentment.

“I do,” Dean agrees, stroking through his hair. “But, uh — you don’t just smell like you, right now.”

Cas blinks.

“What else do I smell like?”

“Well,” Dean murmurs, drifting back to his neck, lips brushing down it, Cas’s skin tingling in its path. “You smell a little bit like me.”

Heat rushes through Cas, breathtaking and inexplicable, because the idea of that, of Dean scenting himself on Cas and _liking_ it—

“Oh,” he whispers, not sure what to say to that, or even why he’s quite so enamored of the thought, but then Dean’s pressing closer, nibbling at that one, deeply sensitive place on his throat, and Cas arches into him with a gasp, confusion forgotten.

He just — he wants it so _badly,_ and he hates that he can’t have such a simple, wonderful pleasure without Dean paying the price.

“Cas,” Dean murmurs, the barest of vibrations against his skin. “Can I touch you?”

“Yes,” Cas says quickly. “Yes — however you want. And — keep doing that, please.”

“Which thing?”

“With your teeth,” Cas whispers. “On my neck. It — that’s one of my favorite things, that you do to me.”

In his arms, Dean stills.

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Cas says, tipping his head further, a little desperate. “It’s not the same, when you do it to my shoulder.”

Dean’s quiet for a few seconds, just breathing against him.

“Usually—" he starts, hesitant. “Usually, uh. Lovers, like we are — we wouldn’t do that. We wouldn’t — kiss each other there, or bite, even if it wasn’t hard. You — you’d save that for your mate.”

Which — that’s just _ridiculous._ Why would anyone deny themselves, when it felt so good?

They wouldn’t, and perhaps it’s not as pleasurable for Dean, the way it is for Cas, but so long as Dean is willing—

Well, Cas doesn’t care about what Winchesterians _usually_ do.

“I don’t want a mate,” he says firmly, squeezing Dean’s shoulders. “I want you.”

For a long, long moment, Dean says nothing.

Then he takes a deep breath, pulling back and catching Cas’s lips against his.

“God damn it, Cas,” he breathes out. “I just — I wish I knew.”

Before Cas can ask, Dean ducks his head, mouth finding Cas’s throat once again, and suddenly, the hand on his hip slides back, Dean’s palm warm as it draws what Cas suspects is an unnecessarily slow, firm path over his rear. Two fingers curl into the dip of his posterior, slipping down into the slick pooling at his opening and stroking over it, and Cas sucks in a breath, clutching Dean a little tighter as he instinctively pushes against them.

Dean pauses, fingertips a light pressure over the spot, and Cas huffs.

“Dean.”

The fingers press down, rubbing at him a little harder, and Cas jerks in Dean’s lap.

“ _Dean._ ”

Dean just keeps stroking, lips soft at the skin of Cas’s neck, and the dual sensation is almost paralyzing, Cas’s body flushing hot as he trembles against him.

“More,” he grits out. “Touch me — touch me inside, I want—"

One of Dean’s fingers push forward, teeth gently clamping down, and Cas’s words dry up, mind whiting out until finally—

Dean’s finger carefully eases inside.

Cas inhales, briefly tensing before he _gives_ , and to his relief, Dean doesn’t hesitate. He slides it fully into him, knuckle brushing warmly over Cas’s opening as his finger buries deep, and then it curls, pressing against Cas’s walls as it slowly drags back out.

There’s the barest of pauses, the tip of Dean’s finger lingering just inside of him, and then it twists, thrusting right back inside.

Cas shudders, automatically rolling his hips as he chases the friction.

“I love that,” he pants against Dean’s shoulder, heart racing. “The sliding part. It feels — feels _so_ good, Dean.”

Dean stops, the digit stilling halfway inside, and Cas tightens around it without thinking, trying to draw it deeper.

“That’s good,” Dean says hoarsely, and Cas loves that, too, loves the way Dean’s voice turns rough and uneven when he touches Cas. “Really good. I, uh, I like the sliding part, too.”

Cas smiles, though Dean can’t see him.

“Alright. Please keep doing it,” he reminds him gently, and with a breathless laugh, Dean’s finger smoothly pushes back in, his other arm wrapping around Cas, holding tight, and Cas sighs, because really—

He loves _all_ of it. He loves Dean, loves the way Dean chooses to touch him, loves the way his own body responds to it, and if he could ask for anything . . .

It would be to know there would always, _always_ be a next time.

“Doin’ great, Cas,” Dean murmurs after a few more strokes, touch lingering inside, rubbing almost curiously as the arm around Cas squeezes him a little closer. “I’m gonna give you another one, okay?”

There’s a flutter in the pit of Cas’s stomach, rippling through the heat that pools there, and he nods, arching into Dean a little more and delighting in the way their lengths slide together, messy between them. Dean’s finger slips partway out, a slight tug at the edge of him, and a moment later, Cas feels a second one uncurl, gradually pressing in alongside the first.

“Ah — yes — thank you—“

Dean huffs a laugh, fingertips shifting just inside of him, and tremors roll through Cas at the pressure, a familiar ache beginning to touch his core as he nudges back against them.

“Dean,” he murmurs, and Dean obliges the unspoken request, fingers slipping deeper.

In some ways, the partial fullness is _worse_.

“I did this last night,” Cas mutters, that tight, restless sensation starting to draw beneath his skin as he twitches around them. “It feels better when you slide them faster. Just so you know.”

Dean’s breath stutters against his neck.

“Fuck,” he mumbles. “You have the best, worst dirty talk ever, Cas.”

Cas doesn’t get to ask for clarification, however, because then Dean’s fingers are smoothly thrusting in, pushing through the mess of slick and burying deep, the knuckles of his hand the only thing halting their path.

Cas jerks in his arms, heat washing over him as he grips Dean’s neck a little tighter.

“Like that,” he quickly chokes out. “Again, please.”

Dean laughs, drawing out.

“And so fucking polite,” he adds, pushing back in, and this time, Cas just rolls into the pleasure of it, trembling a little at the sensation, Dean’s penis still slipping wetly against his own every time he rocks forward. Dean’s arm is warm around him, offering the barest of guidance to his motions, and after a few swift strokes inside of Cas, Dean begins to mouth at his shoulder, the pace of his fingers quickening in precisely the way Cas likes.

So Cas starts moving faster, too, instinctively matching him, his pleasure beginning to wash over him in waves, and just when the ache is starting to return, Cas pulsing desperately around Dean’s fingers as they push steadily in and out—

Dean spreads them.

“Ah,” Cas gasps, movements stuttering. Only then does he realize he’s begun to lift himself, unconsciously seeking leverage as he moves into each thrust, because he jerks further up in shock, sliding away from the sudden stretch and convulsing around it as he feels them pull at his opening.

Dean pauses, fingers still held apart inside him, Cas’s walls throbbing in pleased confusion around them.

“Okay?” he pants, pulling back and catching his eye, and Cas quickly nods.

“Yes. I — I think.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” he says, more confident. “Just — unexpected. You’ve never done that before.”

“Right. It’s supposed to help the next part, a little.”

Cas hesitates, struggling to catch his breath, and Dean’s fingers close, curling slightly, the hand on Cas’s back drawing him down.

“It stretches me,” Cas concludes. “Is that necessary? Last night, they all fit.”

Dean nods, gently stroking inside him for a moment.

“Might not be. But you were, uh. You’d had a lot to drink, so you might not have noticed as much. And my fingers are kinda big.”

“In a good way,” Cas interjects, and Dean grins, eyes crinkling sweetly. “A — a very nice way.”

“Well, thanks, buddy. I, uh, I’m glad you think so. But I still don’t wanna hurt you with them, so—" His fingers part once more, a slow drag against him as they pull out, and heat coils in Cas’s stomach. “Just in case.”

“A-alright. It feels nice,” Cas adds, returning his head to the crook of Dean’s neck, then pats his back as an afterthought. “I don’t mind.”

Dean chuckles, low and pleased, and thrusts his closed fingers back inside, leaning down to kiss Cas’s _earlobe,_ of all things.

“Awesome. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Cas doesn’t, settles into this new rhythm, stretching around the digits as they twist and spread, sliding in and out with little resistance, a steady stream of slick easing their path, but as nice as that feels, Dean’s fingers gently tugging, rubbing deep inside him, the ache starts to creep back in, restless and wanting. Cas’s opening begins to tighten around each stroke inside, Dean’s fingers clasped together, but before he can think how to convey that to Dean—

They spread wide once more, a long, slow glide that nearly has them slipping free, and then Cas feels the tip of another finger brush against him before it cautiously wriggles in to join them.

They hover there, held still where he opens, and Dean pulls away again, catching his eye. Cas blinks back at him in question, and slowly, Dean’s fingers begin to push further inside, eyes fixed on Cas’s face all the while.

Cas’s breath catches, body spasming around them, and after a brief pause — they smoothly thrust in the rest of the way.

He breathes, short and fast between them, and Dean licks his lips.

“How’s that? Okay? ”

It takes Cas a moment to find his voice.

“You were right,” he murmurs, hips shifting slightly as he experimentally clenches around them. “Your fingers are bigger.”

Dean nods.

“A little bit.”

Cas clears his throat.

“Your penis is also bigger.”

Dean blinks, then nods again.

“It is. But, uh. It doesn’t have to go anywhere.” He tilts his chin up, lips brushing Cas’s as his fingers wiggle slightly inside him. “Let’s try this, for now, and — you tell me if you feel like more.”

“Alright.” Cas lifts a little, tightening his hold on Dean’s shoulders. “But — I like that your fingers are bigger. I think I’ll want more.”

Dean swallows.

Then the arm around Cas’s waist curls, pulling him forward as Dean kisses him again.

“We’ll see,” he promises.

And then he slides his fingers nearly all the way out, thrusting back in just as Cas sinks down around them, and Cas shudders, instinctively lifting again, the pleasant sort of chills dancing up his spine. He pushes back down, contracting around the digits as he settles and they press fully inside, then promptly rises, relishing the friction, the slight stretch as he drops down and that heat, low in his belly, flares bright.

Dean exhales, oddly tense against him.

“How’s that?”

“Good.” Cas leans forward to kiss him, shoulders drawing up a little as Dean meets another thrust. “It — it keeps getting better. Do it faster, Dean.”

There’s a soft groan against his lips, and Dean’s fingers start working faster indeed, tips curling as they press against him on the exit, and Cas quickly scrambles to match his rhythm. He can feel a faint burn in his thighs, straining as he works himself up and down, but the pleasure of Dean’s fingers is rapidly building to something hot and familiar, stroking over every nerve inside his body, and he can’t bring himself to care about much else. He’s found his way back to Dean’s neck, panting against the warm, flushed skin there, Dean’s pulse thudding against his cheek, and he’s suddenly glad of all those hours spent striding up the steep incline of the dock ramps, heavy crates in his arms as the backs of his legs bore the brunt of the difficulty, else he’s not sure he _could_ keep up, Dean’s fingers barely slipping free of the wet grasp of his opening before they’re shoving back in, Cas frantically moving his body in time. The stretch is long-forgotten, the three digits nothing more than a n acute , satisfying presence inside him as the wonderful slide in and out continues, and as the ache in his thighs grows, Cas finds he _likes_ it, likes the tension, the force as he rocks back down onto Dean’s thrusting fingers and his body trembles from the pleasure of it.

“Dean,” he pants, eyes shut tight, and Dean hums, nipping at the skin of his shoulder before his fingers suddenly reverse, pushing in out of rhythm and spreading when they promptly draw out once more.

Cas chokes, curling forward, his legs locking up, but Dean doesn’t falter, just thrusts back in and parts them again, dragging out against the grip of Cas’s opening in a way that has stars bursting behind Cas’s eyelids and molten heat searing through him, soaking his bones.

He smothers a dry sob against Dean’s neck, trying to find strength to move, but all he can do is hover there, legs taut as Dean’s fingers spread and narrow, still ruthlessly pressing in and out, Cas utterly frozen but for the desperate spasm where he takes him in, until suddenly, Dean withdraws altogether, a horrible, empty throb in his wake as he lets go of Cas’s back and pulls away.

Cas finally drops into his lap, struggling to catch his breath, watching Dean with wide eyes as he shivers.

“Why did you stop?”

“Because you feel like you’re getting close,” Dean says, voice rough. “Is that how you want to finish?”

Cas hesitates, trying not to squirm around the unpleasant sense of space inside him, conscious of his slick leaking down onto Dean’s thighs.

“No. I thought — I thought you were going to bed me. Fuck me.”

Dean takes a deep breath, hands settling on Cas’s thighs, squeezing. The fingers on his right slip slightly, still wet with Cas’s slick, and Cas stares at the point of contact, shiny in the fading daylight.

“Is that what you want?”

Cas swallows, looking back to Dean, to his intent, dark eyes and his flushed, sweat-damp face, and really, there’s only one answer he can think to give.

“I — yes. I want more.” He inhales, shuddering. “I — I feel so empty, Dean.”

Those marvelous eyes widen a fraction.

And then a low, rough sound tears from Dean’s throat, something almost like a _growl_ as his hands shift to Cas’s waist, grasping tightly as they urge him up and off of Dean’s lap.

“C’mon, sweetheart. Time to lie down,” he mutters, and before Cas can try to move into it, to aid him in the change, Dean is rising to his knees, using momentum as he hauls Cas out of his lap and deposits him onto his back.

Cas bounces against the bed with a startled noise, experiencing a distinct pulse just about everywhere his body _can_ pulse as Dean’s hands hook beneath his sprawled knees, swiftly lifting him and dragging him straight, giving one final tug downward so the pillow slips beneath his hips. The ache in Cas’s posterior sharpens, that strange, unsettling emptiness demanding relief, and he suddenly feels very sorry for the poor pillow now lying underneath it.

“How’s that?” Dean asks breathlessly, releasing him and settling between his crooked knees. “Are you comfortable?”

Cas shifts his back slightly, adjusting his head and neck to lie more naturally in the little hollow of pillows Dean’s created for them, and it feels as if the others rise up and form a soft enclosure around him, strangely pleasant to his instincts.

“I am. This — this is nice. I like this.”

Dean beams, some of the tension in his body letting out.

“Yeah?”

“I like what you did with the pillows.”

Dean licks his lips.

“Thanks. I — I tried.”

“Well, I appreciate it.”

Dean hesitates, then smiles, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You, uh. You look really good, right now. Really — really beautiful. So you know.”

“Oh.” Cas’s stomach flips pleasantly, pulse stammering in his chest. “Thank you. You, um. You’re beautiful, too. Especially — your freckles stand out, when your cheeks color. It — it’s very becoming, Dean.”

Dean blinks his lovely, _lovely_ green eyes, and then he laughs.

“ _Really_ ? I’m about to — and you — you’re complimenting my _freckles_?”

Cas lifts his brows.

“Yes? Your freckles are wonderful.”

“My freckles are _ridiculous_ , Cas,” he chuckles, scooting forward a little and reaching for Cas’s thighs, and Cas is so distracted by that, by Dean’s palms, flat and warm against the backs of them as they gently push them up toward his chest, that the words almost don’t register.

“They are not,” he protests. “They’re pretty. And I think — they make you look friendlier.”

Dean pauses, just looking at him for a moment, though his eyes are warm and his thumbs start stroking the sensitive skin where they rest.

(Cas’s abdomen tenses, the part of his brain not devoted to disapproval at the insult to Dean’s freckles very, very conscious of how this leaves him.)

“Uh-huh. So . . . you like me pretty and friendly?”

Cas quickly nods.

“Very much.”

“Huh. Well, alright. I guess my freckles are kinda nice, then.” His tongue darts out, wetting his lips. “I should, uh, probably make sure you know I don’t just _look_ friendly, though.”

Cas blinks.

“What?” he asks, and Dean winks at him.

And then he nudges Cas’s thighs apart, ducking his head, and in the next instant—

“Ah — _Dean—"_ Cas fists his hands in the sheet beside him, involuntarily thrusting upward, penis slipping deeper into the wet heat of Dean’s mouth, and Dean lets out an appreciative-sounding moan, squeezing his thighs. “You — that’s not what you — _nngh_ —"

Before Cas can keep trying and failing to voice his not-quite-complaint, one of Dean’s hands leaves his thighs, deftly slipping down, and after a brief, teasing stroke over his opening—

All three of Dean’s fingers thrust back inside.

Heat crashes over Cas, violent and blinding as he immediately goes tight, bucking up into Dean’s mouth in a desperate attempt to somehow redistribute the sensation before it overwhelms him, but the slippery friction of Dean’s tongue does very little to quell it. It just — it feels _so_ good, and this is only the third time Dean’s done this, but Cas thinks he _loves_ it, loves every maddening, beautiful part of it, helpless to do anything but push into Dean’s mouth and rock onto his fingers, squeezing around the blissful fullness inside him, and just when he starts struggling to maintain a rhythm, is gasping for every bit of air in his lungs and involuntarily twisting, the pleasure of it fast approaching too much to bear—

Dean pushes his tongue up, flat against the underside of Cas’s penis, and slides off, a slow, terrible drag that leaves him thrusting into nothing, the remaining comfort of Dean’s fingers short-lived as they slip out and leave his body.

He shudders at the abrupt _nothing_ in all directions, weakly struggling up on to his elbows to give Dean an imploring look.

“You stopped,” he manages, unable to keep the accusation out of his voice, and Dean strokes over Cas’s shaking knee with his clean hand, lifting a brow.

“Well, yeah. You were getting close again.”

“But—" Cas starts, and only then remembers the original plan. “Oh.”

Dean smiles at him, though there’s a peculiar tension in what Cas can see of his body, angled as he is.

“Do you still want that? I can finish you, if you’d rather just do this.”

“No,” Cas says quickly, shaking his head. “I want to try. Is it — is it time?”

Dean squeezes his knee, thumb gently tapping the inside.

“If you’re ready.”

And Cas wonders if he should hesitate, if he should think it over again, but Dean has that _look_ again, the look that makes Cas’s soul feel on the verge of springing from his body, that makes every part of his being turn bright and unrestrained from the sheer, overwhelming joy of it. Cas is still trembling, body flushed and stifled and that terrible, pulsing ache at his core, his opening clutching at the emptiness, desperate for relief, and on impulse, he parts his thighs a little more, canting his hips in reverse of the way that seems to offer Dean the best access when he eats him.

“I am,” he says. “Please.”

Dean _flinches_ , sucking in a breath as his gaze drops, and then he’s suddenly scrambling over Cas, bracing his palms against the bed and clumsily ducking down to kiss him.

“I — you — I’m so in —" He stops, then suddenly kisses him harder, a kiss with such purpose and desperation it leaves Cas reeling. “Tell me if you want me to stop. Tell me if there’s anything you want from me.”

Which — Dean is talking about the intimacy, the physical acts they participate in, but Cas’s thoughts abruptly drift, wistfully reaching for things that have no place here, utterly beyond his control.

_You aren’t hopeful? For mating? For marriage?_

_He behaves like he loves you._

Cas shudders, pushing the thoughts aside.

He is twenty-five years old, being touched with breathtaking care and affection by someone he loves in a way he hadn’t thought himself capable of, and he knows better than to pine after things he’s well aware he cannot have.

He is not going to let stray, pointless wishes ruin the actual moments being given to him, so instead, he loops his arms around Dean’s neck and determinedly kisses him back.

“Just you,” he whispers.

_Just for now._

Dean shivers, and then he’s snatching up the forgotten envelope, fumbling the flap open and pinching the sides with one hand while the other reaches in and pulls its contents free.

“Sheath,” he says by way of explanation, tossing the envelope aside, and just as Cas is about to ask what that means, Dean begins easing whatever it is down over his penis. “So I don’t — so you won’t end up — expecting.”

There’s a flicker of disappointment, at that, even if Cas can acknowledge the folly in it, but then Dean is shifting onto his elbows, body pressing flush to his, and he lets the feeling fall away. On instinct, he wraps his legs around Dean’s back, and when he draws them up slightly in pursuit of the most comfortable fit, he’s pleased by the way he seems to cradle Dean between them as a result.

Dean smiles at him, like it pleases him, too.

“Awesome, Cas. Just like that,” he says, a little breathless, and then he leans onto one elbow, reaching between them and taking himself in hand.

A moment later, Cas _feels_ him, a hot, solid pressure against his opening, altogether different from Dean’s fingertips, clustered together as they’d sought entrance, and Cas feels himself twitch against the presence, body uncertain.

Dean ducks his head, kissing his cheek.

“Just like that,” he repeats, lips soft where they brush against the skin. “You’re doing great.”

Which — _that’s_ absurd _,_ given that Cas is effectively just lying there, waiting for Dean to push inside of him, but then, Dean often credits him with more of the effort in these encounters than Cas thinks is really reasonable.

But Dean starts pressing forward, then, Cas tightening around him on reflex, and with that, potentially unwarranted praise is forgotten.

Dean pauses.

“Okay?”

Cas nods, squeezing his back.

“Okay,” he confirms, and Dean kisses his cheek again before he slowly continues, Cas’s body tentatively relaxing as the wide, rounded head of Dean’s penis eases fully inside.

He shifts slightly against the intrusion, feeling a mild tug at his opening, that wanting space beyond it pulsing in anticipation, and when Dean hisses, slipping in a little further, frissons of pleasure bound out from where it stretches him.

Cas instinctively arches into it, a pleasant tightness in his gut as the motion pulls Dean just a little bit deeper.

“Careful,” Dean murmurs, breaths short and fast against Cas’s cheek. “It — it’s hard to go slow, when you move around.”

“Why would you go slow?” Cas asks, a little frustrated by the sensation of Dean hovering partway inside, and he tries to roll his hips forward in encouragement.

Dean just makes a choked noise, thrusting back against him, and while there’s a definite sting, Cas’s body tensing briefly as he sinks in, he’s more preoccupied with the satisfaction of the _slide,_ that wonderful, slick friction inside him, of Dean’s penis teasing at the fullness of before, when he’d given Cas all of his fingers.

“Oh,” he breathes out, convulsing around the pressure, his heart thudding wildly in his chest. “Like that.”

Dean’s head drops to Cas’s shoulder, a shudder rippling through his back, and then he frees his hand, weight returning to his elbows as he takes a deep breath.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, a barely audible mutter in Cas’s ear, and Cas dismisses that initial discomfort, shaking his head and rocking his hips up a little.

“No. More,” he adds, insistent. “Like you did with your fingers, Dean.”

Dean makes a soft sound, and then he pulls back, a scant withdrawal Cas finds immediately irritating, but before he can voice a complaint—

Dean pushes in again, sliding deeper, and Cas hisses, arms tightening around him.

“Yes,” he whispers. “Yes, like—"

Again, Dean retreats, a small enough distance Cas quiets, trusting what will happen next, and sure enough—

 _“Dean,_ ” he groans, thighs squeezing at his sides as heat rushes through him, and Dean makes a rough noise against his throat as he pulls back and pushes forward, barely lingering before he repeats the motion, pressing deeper with every stroke.

Cas just clings more tightly, head light as Dean moves, short, rapid thrusts in and out as he gradually fits himself inside. It feels like an eternity until at last, one clumsy twitch forward has Dean’s hips settling flush against his rear, and Cas shudders, fingers digging into Dean’s back as he automatically tries to keep pushing up against him, his opening fluttering around Dean’s length.

Dean’s arm shifts, hand moving to Cas’s hair and smoothing it back, the strands sticking slightly as he goes. It always seems absurd to Cas, how much his body seems to think it exerts itself in these moments, sweat slicking his skin and breaths coming short and fast when all he’s really done is lie there and hold on, but right now, his whole body feels tight, straining around the huge, unmistakable presence inside of it, and his state is such that he might as well have been sprinting up and down the ship ramp, heavy crates doubled up in his arms.

“How are you doing?” Dean whispers, eyes searching, traces of worry in them. He’s tense, too, hair spiking with sweat, that same breathlessness in his voice, and Cas can feel how hard his lungs are working, chest nearly pressed to Cas’s. “You feel okay?”

Which — Cas isn’t sure ‘okay’ quite describes what he feels. He’d thought — he’d been so sure it would hurt, at least a little, but though Cas is reeling from it, Dean feeling huge and inescapable, pressed inside him the way he is — past not hurting, the idea of Dean withdrawing at this point has Cas immediately recoiling. There’s tension, yes, the stretch more significant than it started out, more significant than with Dean’s fingers, but as much as Cas hasn’t quite adjusted to it, a part of him is — is _satisfied_ by the fullness he feels there, instincts telling him the sense of emptiness left behind will be vastly more unpleasant than when it was simply fingers he was suddenly lacking.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he says instead, taking deep breaths, unable to stop from shifting again, Dean’s girth pressing out against his walls as he moves, an inexorable pressure that elicits a small, familiar spark in his belly. Dean can go no further, clearly, but still, the temptation is to move into it. “I thought it would hurt.”

Dean’s eyes soften, fingers brushing through his hair again.

“No. It, uh. It can be uncomfortable, the first few times, but — it shouldn’t last. It’s never supposed to _hurt_.” He smiles, then, flushed face bright. “You did awesome, by the way. Got so wet, Cas. Opened right up for me.”

Cas feels a thrill rush through him, at that, that pleasant ache flaring, because _that —_ that is true. He did, and the idea that it helped, that it in some way made this moment possible, gives him an undeniable sense of pride.

“Good,” he says, smiling back. “I wanted to.”

Dean shrugs slightly, still watching him with those _eyes,_ eyes that have him giddy and pleased in a way that has little to do with the way they’re connected, Cas wrapped tight around Dean in all the ways he can conceive of, and everything to do with the fact that the person he’s connected to is _Dean._

“Yeah? You’re lucky. Bodies don’t, uh. Don’t always cooperate, even when we really want something. But you really — you did great, Cas.”

Cas beams.

“It’s a gift,” he reminds him, and Dean laughs, leaning in to kiss him. Cas can feel the vibrations from it, not just where their chests brush, but where Dean is held inside him, and Cas laughs, too, delighted by the feeling.

“It really is,” Dean murmurs, and then he pulls away, still smiling down at Cas. “I’m gonna move, okay?”

“Okay. Please do,” Cas adds, lightly patting his back. “I, um. I’m curious about the sliding, like this.”

Dean licks his lips.

“Yeah?”

Cas nods, pat turning to a light stroke, the muscle strangely tight beneath his touch.

“Very,” he confirms, intrigued by the almost _sly_ look in Dean’s eyes. “I enjoyed it, when you — the way you came inside me.”

Dean sucks in a breath, jerking slightly, and Cas instinctively crosses his ankles a little tighter, heels pressing down against Dean’s back to prevent him from moving away.

Which — it’s actually a very pleasant feeling, forcibly returning him to that simmering heat, to the pleasure of what they had been doing, and Cas experimentally uses the hold as leverage to draw himself upward; and even though he _can’t_ take Dean in any further, the pressure as he wiggles up against him turns out to be _incredibly_ nice—

“ _Cas_ ,” Dean moans, head dropping, back rigid beneath Cas’s touch. “That — that means something different.”

Cas ignores him, taking a fortifying breath. There was a moment, there, his hips turning instead of pushing forward, Dean caught inside him, enormous and hot, and he arches slightly, circling them again.

And sure enough—

“Fuck,” Dean hisses, his own abruptly shoving down, startling Cas into relaxing, not that he minds, because _that_ is absolutely—

“Again,” he gasps out, arching a little further, shivering when their penises rub together, slipping against the skin on their stomachs. “ _Yes_ — I want — move, Dean—”

He pushes up again, trying to nudge Dean’s hips back, to prompt him to slide out, the way he’d done with his fingers, had _been_ doing with his penis — albeit in smaller motions — but if anything, Dean’s body locks up entirely, refusing to budge.

“Dean,” he complains, a sense of urgency pricking at him, need restless and building. “Move.”

Dean inhales, chest pushing out against Cas’s.

“Just — hang on,” he says, strained. “You — you’re really — I need a sec.”

“Of course,” Cas agrees, a little disappointed, but Dean has never rushed him, and even if Cas didn’t suspect that was part of some greater set of rules for these things, he’s appreciated that, and he’s not about to deny Dean the same consideration.

He flattens his palm against Dean’s back as he pets over it more firmly, attempting to soothe, but if anything, Dean’s body tenses even further.

“Dean?”

Dean shudders, head dropping, and after a moment, during which Cas worries he needs _more_ than a second, that something has gone wrong and they won’t be able to continue after all—

Dean _moves_.

Cas’s breath hitches, Dean drawing out of him; it’s not the short, barely-felt movement of before, but a long, slow drag that Cas immediately tightens around, protesting the space left behind.

“Oh, God,” Dean mutters, thrusting smoothly back in, and a wild thrill sprints up Cas’s spine, warming him. “Oh, _God,_ Cas, you — _God._ ”

“No,” Cas protests, tentatively rolling his hips into Dean’s next push forward, and Dean groans. “But — that’s a nice compliment.”

The groan turns to laughter, more breath than sound, and Dean starts moving a little faster, the sparks flitting nervously inside of Cas igniting with every slick press inside. He keeps his ankles locked, uses Dean to pull himself into every stroke, and all the heat of before surges back into him, overwhelming.

“Yes,” he breathes out, squeezing Dean tight. “Good, Dean, it feels so good—"

Dean snaps forward with a hiss, sliding _deep,_ and Cas arches into it, words cutting off with a moan.

He can’t quite find words, after that. He doesn’t know if it’s the steady wetness, slick flowing readily inside him, or if it’s his body, his gift, adjusting the way it did with Dean’s fingers, but with every slide in and out, the easier it becomes for Dean to move — the more Cas seems to _open_ for him — and the better each slide within him feels, pure heat and satisfaction as Dean fills him again and again and _again._

And oh, the _sounds_ Dean is making. He’s nearly collapsed over Cas’s chest now, head tucked into his shoulder as he rocks in and out of him, moans muffled into the skin there, and at one point Cas hears something that almost sounds like a sob, though there’s enough soft need to it that it triggers a deep thrill in him rather than any kind of alarm. The only other time Dean’s been anything close to this vocal was the morning Cas sucked his cock, and Cas wonders now if Dean perhaps has a particularly sensitive penis.

He squeezes him, drawing his knees further up so he can grasp Dean more tightly with his thighs, and somehow it elicits another of those sweet, broken sobs, Dean’s motions stuttering before he abruptly slams forward, a force that bounds through Cas’s body and brings a new wave of heat with it.

“Cas — _Cas,_ ” he moans, fingers tangling in Cas’s hair. “Feel so fucking good, Cas, feel _perfect—"_

Cas arches up into him, relishing the faint friction as his own penis brushes against their stomachs, and his body seems to clutch at Dean in that wonderful way as a result. He thinks Dean enjoys it, too, fingers tight in Cas’s hair, his breaths ragged, the muscles in his back jumping every time Cas pulses around him, and then he’s drawing out and pushing back in and Cas is _so_ pleased with his body, because the more Dean slides in and out of him, slick pooling generously every time there’s space for it and lights dancing in Cas’s vision with every drag against his walls, the more sure he is that this is one of the best things they’ve ever done together.

“Dean,” he pants, clinging to his back. “Dean, sometimes — when you push in, you use more force, and it — it feels so good, will you—"

Dean groans against his shoulder, abruptly lifting his head, movements stilling, and Cas feels himself spasm in indignation.

“Yeah? You want it harder, Cas?”

Cas shudders, hips twitching up as he throbs around Dean, desperate for a return to movement.

“Yes, and — fast. I don’t like the empty part.”

Dean makes another choked, desperate sounding noise, and then he crashes forward, kissing Cas hard, mouth working urgently over Cas’s just as he thrusts in deep, barely pausing before there’s that tantalizing slide out again, followed by another hard shove back inside, Cas crying out against his mouth.

“Like that?” Dean whispers, and the slide is almost difficult to bear, that hot, tight feeling beneath his skin increasing tenfold, sensation pouring over him, and he frantically digs his heels into Dean’s back, trying to pull himself into each sharp, powerful thrust.

“Y-yes,” he stutters out, stomach drawing tight. “Like — _ah_ —”

Without warning, Dean’s hand slips free of his hair, reaching down and pushing Cas’s thigh out and back, a stretch that seems to make his whole body light up, Dean still relentlessly sliding in and out of it, and then Dean’s mouth is back on his, tongue determined as it licks inside and his hand returns to Cas’s hair, holding his head in place. Cas just shudders and clings, kissing him back and rocking into every fast, magnificent thrust inside, and he can’t believe he was ever afraid of this, can’t believe they told him to _bear_ it, can’t believe he tried to undress that first morning in the bed and Dean didn’t just cover him with his body and _do_ it, that Dean had him like this the night of the festival, driven by rut and _still_ held back, because—

“Did you know?” Cas gasps out, urgently clutching Dean’s back, hips still desperately rolling into him. “How — how did you make yourself wait, if it’s like this?”

“Because I was waiting for you,” Dean counters, barely pausing, and then he’s ducking his head, mouth latching onto Cas’s throat. Cas jerks and twists, Dean’s body smothering the bulk of the movement, and Dean mercilessly sucks at the skin, Cas’s head falling to the side as he chokes out a sob, elation spiraling through him.

“Yes,” he moans. “Please, please—"

It’s too much, Dean’s teeth around the skin there, a glorious sting as they press down, teasing at a bite Cas knows he can’t have but wants, with every lovelorn and pleasure-drenched ounce of his being, and as Dean inexorably presses into him, mouth scorching where he rolls the tender flesh of Cas’s throat between his teeth, Cas’s muscles start to tense, his body locking up and unable to participate in the rhythm any longer.

“Close,” he cries, shuddering in Dean’s arms, fingers digging into his back. “Don’t stop, I’m so close, Dean—"

Dean’s teeth clamp down, just a little bit, just hard enough that Cas thinks, for one wild, senseless moment that he’s somehow decided to do it—

But then he tears his head away and seals his mouth over Cas’s shoulder, teeth sinking into the skin just as he sinks into Cas, hips juddering in short, erratic thrusts, and with that—

Cas is lost.

***

“You okay?” Dean whispers after some time, the light in the room deepening to blue as the sun sets on the other side of the house, cut by warm flickers from the fire where it crackles unobtrusively in the grate.

Cas startles out of his daze, tilting his head up to blink at him.

He’s surprised by the angle, though he vaguely recalls Dean whispering things to him, after, shifting them around and drawing Cas’s weight over him, Cas immediately curling into his warmth as the blanket was pulled around his shoulders, still trembling from what had transpired.

He thinks a great deal of time must have passed since they started this venture, but for the life of him, he couldn’t say how long it was.

“Yes.” His voice is raspy, even rougher than usual, and Cas clears his throat. “I’m okay.”

“Alright.” There’s a pause, Dean’s pulse a steady, reassuring beat beneath Cas’s palm, and then Dean shifts, brushing his lips over Cas’s forehead. “How, uh. How do you feel about — all of that?”

There’s a lot, as Cas returns to himself, much of it confusing, perhaps even frightening, though there’s a lot of _good_ humming beneath his skin, pleasure lingering throughout his body despite the small ache where Dean had been.

“Is it—" he starts, trying organize his suddenly racing thoughts, skirting the shape of them, doing his best to make it out. “Is it always like that?”

Dean stills, and Cas can feel his pulse stutter slightly, quickening in his chest.

“Uh. That — that depends. What did you think it was like?”

Cas looks away again, resting his cheek against Dean’s shoulder.

“I . . .” He hesitates, not quite sure how to explain his feelings, right now. “I thought it was wonderful.”

Dean relaxes a little, and then his hand comes up, fingers carding through Cas’s hair.

“Well. It . . . it’s not always like that. Not for me, at least.” He hesitates. “But — it should always be good.”

Cas nods slowly, turning his head slightly, into Dean’s touch.

“And . . . am I going to want it, the way I want the other things?”

Dean’s hand pauses.

“What do you mean?”

Cas just stares at Dean’s chest, smooth and still lightly flushed, stares at his own fingers where they splay across it, struggling to fully process everything.

“I . . . I crave the way you touch me. The things we do together. I’m going to want this again, too.” Cas swallows. “Again and again and again. Aren’t I?”

Dean breathes in, a small, quiet hitch.

“Maybe,” he says eventually. “I, uh. I am.”

“But . . . this — this is what you do. To make heirs.”

Dean tenses.

“Uh. Kind of? Why, uh, why do you ask?”

Cas can’t answer for a moment, thinking about beautiful noblewomen and charming princesses, tangled up in Dean’s arms, indescribable pleasure rushing through them as he gives to them the way he has to Cas.

About how Dean will hold them afterward, body warm and solid, hands gentle as he touches them, because Dean _will_ touch them, just the way he’s touching Cas.

About how, when all is said and done, when they’re still euphoric and dazzled by what’s occurred, when they’ve fallen in love with Dean — because how could they not, how could anyone see him, in all his humor and generosity and kindness and beauty, and _not_ fall in love with him? — they will lie beside him and sleep, and then wake to his warmth when the sun rises in the morning.

Cas shuts his eyes and curls forward, into Dean’s chest, tears suddenly welling up.

“Cas?”

He takes a deep breath, shaking his head.

“Sorry,” he whispers. “It’s just — it’s a lot, Dean.”

Dean’s quiet a moment, hand slowly petting over Cas’s head again.

Cas wonders what color Princess Isabela’s hair is, if it’s straight or wavy or curly, what Dean will think of it, caught between his fingers.

He likes Cas’s hair, said so himself, but — will he ultimately prefer hers, if that is what his council chooses?

“Cas,” Dean finally says, and Cas is startled at the worry in his tone, at the way his happy, languid scent has abruptly muted, something unfamiliar and vaguely unpleasant threading through it. “I don’t . . . you know you don’t have to do that, right?”

Cas tries to shake the thought away, though it sticks, heavy in his mind.

“Do what?” he manages to ask, and Dean takes a deep breath, chest pushing up against Cas’s cheek.

“Heirs. This — if you want it, Cas, we can do it again. As many times as you want. I’ll use a sheath, and I’ll even see about taking something, and you don’t — I will never expect that from you. I swear.”

Cas shuts his eyes tighter.

_What if I want you to?_

“I could,” he says instead, and Dean stills. “If — if you wanted. They, um. They won’t send me to the Gardens, anymore. And . . . the ones that aren’t alpha sons, I could — perhaps I could keep them here, with me. And you . . . you could visit — all of us.”

Dean has gone rigid beneath him, and Cas waits, trying not to think about what would happen if he _i_ _s_ like the other omegas of New Eden, if he provides the capital with their heir and their spare and that is all he ever gets.

“No,” Dean finally says, and Cas expected that, has known how things would be, ever since Dean assured him he had a plan, long ago in Lawrence — but his sister once told him that he could be disappointed, could be _crushed,_ even if he knew it was coming.

For once, she was right.

“Ah. Alright,” he agrees quietly, ashamed, and he feels Dean swallow.

There’s an acrid scent gathering in the air between them, but Cas can’t quite tell who it’s coming from.

“Cas. You — I need you to understand, that — this, what we do — being with you — that means a lot to me.”

“I know,” Cas says quickly. “It means a lot to me, too.”

“Right.” Dean hesitates. “And . . . that’s enough. We don’t need more. I’ll come see you when I can, and you’ll come see me, whenever you want, and you — you should never think that you have to do anything else. I . . . I love being with you, Cas. That’s all I want. I want time with you, as much as I can get, however we spend it.

“But more importantly — it’s not really about what I want, here. What matters is what _you_ want. So . . . don’t worry about my heirs, or about anything else you think I need. Just — do what makes you happy. And tell me what you need me to do to help.”

They’re so _close,_ Cas thinks. He and Dean are _so_ close, and Cas feels closer to him all the time, enough that parting with Dean is beginning to feel like an insurmountable loss, however temporary it might be.

Cas has never felt more seen or more valued than he does when he’s with Dean, and yet—

Sometimes, it feels like Dean doesn’t understand him at all.

“You want to make me happy.”

He feels Dean nod, hand brushing over his hair again.

“If I can.”

Dean could, Cas thinks. He’s known that for a long time, that if Dean had the freedom and inclination, he could make Cas happier than he could even stand.

_You aren’t hopeful? For mating? For marriage?_

Cas takes a deep breath.

He’s not, actually. Cas might have wished for that, in some part of himself, helpless not to indulge in the sweet potential of _what-ifs,_ but he never held any real hope.

And Dean — Dean must trust him not to, because regardless of what Samandriel might think, he’s made it clear that he has neither the interest or ability to provide it. He asks Cas what he wants, offers to try and make him _happy,_ expecting that Cas knows the limits.

Cas is not stupid or unkind enough to abuse that trust.

“What you said,” he breathes out against Dean’s chest, finally opening his eyes. The sun is almost entirely gone, now, and the dim glow of the fire is strangely comforting. “I want more time with you.”

 _And when it comes to your own happiness? That is the last place you should just be_ _accepting_ _whatever happens!_

“I’d be with you always, if I could,” he adds, foolish and unnecessary, not quite able to help himself, and Dean stops breathing.

He’s silent for so long, Cas wonders if he might just pretend not to have heard, discomfited by the pressure inherent in such a sentiment, though that surprises him. Contrary to what Samandriel says, Dean has never really denied him answers, assuming he had them.

But eventually, Dean lets out a breath, and then he shifts, carefully slipping out from under Cas and turning on his side to face him.

He looks — almost desperate, when he meets Cas’s gaze, hand moving to touch his cheek.

“Cas.” He clears his throat. “Is that — is that about what we just did?”

“What?”

Dean hesitates.

“Do you think you’re still going to feel that way tomorrow? Or the day after? Or in the New Year?”

Cas just looks back at him, lost.

“Yes. I think I will.” Cas can’t imagine not feeling that way, not anymore.

Wanting Dean just feels like a part of him now, inextricable from all the others.

Dean nods, and then he wriggles closer, tilting forward until his forehead touches Cas’s.

“Hey,” he says, voice oddly strained. “I — I know I’m not important, here, but — that would make me really happy. If you could.”

“But I can’t,” Cas points out, though he takes heart in that, even if it’s a lie.

Dean sniffs, shaking his head slightly, his grip on Cas’s cheek firming.

“Listen, I — I have to go home, day after tomorrow, but — I’m gonna try and figure something out. And I can’t — I can’t make you any promises, no matter how bad I want to, but — I’ll fix this, as best as I can. Because I don’t think what we’re doing is working. Not for you or for me.”

There’s a sliver of anxiety, at that, and Cas tries to pull away, wanting to see Dean’s eyes, his face, to have some idea of how to interpret this or what to expect, but Dean holds fast.

“And I’ll come back again, as soon as I sort stuff out. By Christmas, definitely. Is that okay? Can you wait that long?”

Cas is very good at waiting, might even go so far as to claim it as a talent, but—

“For what?”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“I don’t know, yet. But — if you really want to _be_ with me, even just for a little while — I’ll go and I’ll figure out all your options, as many as I can get for you, and then — and then you can decide.”

“Options,” Cas repeats, trying not to hope — he knows better, he _knows._ “As in — I could? Be with you?”

Dean hesitates.

“I hope so,” he whispers, in Cas’s place. “I just — I have to see, first. But yeah, Cas. If you really, honestly want that—"

“I do,” Cas says quickly, and Dean nods.

“Then I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you get it.”

Which — Cas tries to remind himself that Dean’s power is limited, that he’s bound by the will of the council, first and foremost, that the decision is ultimately out of his hands.

But the council has been lenient before, has bent to other causes, and if Dean can somehow convince them to do it again—

“Okay,” he whispers back, and on impulse, tilts his head, pressing his lips to Dean’s. “I’ll wait.”

Dean’s hand shifts against his cheek, thumb stroking over the bone.

“I’ll come tell you, as soon as I know.”

Cas shakes his head.

“Don’t rush them. I’d rather wait months for good news than days for bad.”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“I won’t, Cas. And if I think more time will mean a better answer — I’ll take it. I promise. I — I want this, too.”

Cas nods.

“Good.” He slowly takes in a breath, then lets it out. “Will you put your arm around me?”

Dean pull away slightly, blinking at him, then nods.

“Sure. Of course.” He hesitates, then awkwardly rests his arm over Cas’s hip, a fraction of the contact Cas suddenly finds himself desperate for.

“Dean. Put your arm around me.”

Dean winces, giving him an uncertain look.

“Sorry. I just — you don’t want me to touch your back, and I—"

“I don’t care,” Cas interrupts, and maybe Dean will, but— “Please. Just touch me.”

There’s a long pause, and then slowly, Dean’s arm shifts, curving around him and clasping him close, warm over the scars, and Cas flinches on instinct. Dean starts to pull it away, but he stops when Cas shakes his head.

“No. It — it’s good. Stay.”

There’s a brief, searching look, and apparently satisfied, Dean nods.

“I will, Cas,” he murmurs.

And then he kisses him, soft and achingly sweet, all warmth and welcome and a fondness Cas can’t mistake, and Cas decides, as terrifying as it is, that for once—

He can have a little hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Explicit Sexual Content: Dean undresses Cas and kisses him, then remarks on the daylight, saying ‘I can’t believe I’m gonna make lo-’ and cutting off before he finishes. He covers for himself, Cas none the wiser, but when Cas asks him to elaborate on the problem with doing this in the middle of the day, Dean admits to having pictured it as happening in his room at the castle, by firelight at night, possibly with rose petals or candles as well, expressing some dissatisfaction with his failure to do anything romantic. Cas notes that this means Dean thought of taking him back to the castle, which Dean self-consciously confirms, and Cas reassures him that he simply wishes he’d known Dean had wanted that. He then tells him that if he enjoys what they’re about to do, Dean can bed him when he visits, in whatever setting Dean desires, and a flustered Dean tells him he’s romantic, in his own way, saying that it’s nice.
> 
> They proceed, Dean asking about the bite he left on Cas’s shoulder; Dean wants to bite him again, but is worried about scarring, and Cas frankly assures him he doesn’t care whether it does or not. Cas requests attention paid to his neck, and at this point, Dean admits that the kissing and biting he does are things Cas would normally save for his mate; Cas tells him, “I don’t want a mate, I want you,” and Dean, very affected by that, cryptically expresses that he wishes he knew.
> 
> Dean begins fingering Cas, communicating with him throughout; periodically, Cas experiences intrusive thoughts regarding things Samandriel said, ‘You aren’t hopeful? For mating? For marriage?” chief among them, though they are always quickly pushed aside by his enjoyment of what’s happening. Eventually, Dean moves Cas to his back, and when Cas expresses appreciation for the makeshift nest (though he doesn’t identify it as such) Dean bashfully tells him he looks beautiful. Cas returns the compliment, particularly noting the way Dean’s freckles stand out when he blushes, and Dean is somewhat taken aback, though Cas insists his freckles are pretty and make him look friendlier. Dean concedes that his freckles are kind of nice. Dean briefly performs oral, continuing to finger Cas, and when Cas gets close to orgasm, he stops, confirming that Cas would still like to have penetrative sex. Cas asserts his readiness, adding ‘please.’ Dean starts to say, “I’m so in love with you,” though naturally, he stops before he gets to the important part, then adds, “Tell me if you want me to stop. Tell me if there’s anything you want from me.” Again, Cas thinks of what Samandriel said, then chides himself for diminishing the moment with pointless wishes and sets the thought aside, telling Dean, ‘Just you.’ Dean puts on what is basically a condom, and penetrates Cas, bringing himself and a very enthusiastic Cas to orgasm.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: discussion of various positions/locations for sex, explicit sexual content (scenes marked *** at the beginning and end – it’s kind of the tail end of one scene followed immediately by another scene, sorry - see notes for summary), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Alright, I'm not sure if it'll be one very long 37th chapter, or a 37th and 38th, but regardless, the next update after this pair will be the last! We’re so close, guys! Thank you all very much for your support and feedback, it means a lot ♡ I hope you’re all safe and doing well, and please enjoy.

“How long does the empty feeling last?” Cas asks, once the knock at the door has roused them from an unintentional-but-extremely-pleasant cuddle-nap and they’ve made it about halfway through dinner. It’s been a little quieter than usual, but Dean can’t exactly complain about the way Cas keeps looking at him, anyway, all soft and intent and maybe even a little bit _anticipatory_ , like there’s something he wants and he fully believes Dean is going to provide.

(And Dean thinks he might know what that something is, because Cas _said_ so, said he’d be with Dean always, if he could, and it’s all Dean can do _not_ to make insane promises he has no way of knowing he’ll actually be able to keep.)

Anyway, as the soon as the words penetrate, Dean chokes on his bite of roasted carrot, fork nearly clattering onto the plate.

“Waf?” he asks, unnecessarily, because he heard Cas just fine, and given the day’s events, he can’t think of any other interpretation for that than—

“In my posterior,” Cas clarifies, also unnecessarily. “It’s better than it was, but it still — it’s difficult not to be conscious of it.”

Dean swallows, the lump of partially-chewed carrot a little painful as it squeezes down his throat.

“Uh. I . . . I’m not sure.” Dean’s never been anybody’s first, as far as he knows, and this isn’t the kind of thing casual lovers usually go into detail over. He knows omegas can struggle during their heats, much like Dean gets inordinately sad and desperate when reduced to empty air and the flimsy grasp of his own hand while he feebly powers through a rut on his own, but that’s not what’s happening here, and while Dean figured Cas might be _sore_ . . . he didn’t really expect _empty._ “There — I think there’s kind of a, uh, an adjustment period? You feel funny after the first few times, ‘cause you’re not used to it, but it should go away.”

“I wouldn’t really call it funny,” Cas muses, picking up his water. He takes a sip, then does this weird shifting thing where he sits beside Dean on the bed, brow furrowed. “I think . . . it’s more like I want to be filled again.”

Dean’s fork goes screeching across his plate as he goes stiff — and _yeah,_ in more ways than one — and Cas tilts his head.

“Dean?” He frowns slightly, then reaches for the tray, swapping out his glass for Dean’s and holding it out. “Here. Sex is surprisingly demanding, even when you simply lie there. It must be even worse for you.”

Which, if _that_ was Cas’s ‘simply lying there’, Dean would hate (love) to see his ‘enthusiastic participation,’ but he meekly accepts the water, gulping it down while he scrambles for an appropriate response, one that doesn’t pretty much boil down to _hey, since I actually really wanna fill you again, too, why don’t we do that, right this second, the rest of dinner be damned?_

Cas just smiles at him, vaguely fond.

“So . . .” he begins, once Dean’s set down his water glass and taken a deep, fortifying breath. “It’s something I get used to?”

“Uh.” Dean stops short, thoughts derailed. “Yeah? It — it should be?”

There’s a speculative look, a glint in Cas’s eye that has Dean incredibly grateful for the layers of sheet, blanket, and plate covering his lap.

“So — I should continue doing it.”

Dean swallows.

“Uh. I mean. That — that is the way you get used to something.”

Cas nods, studying him, and _jesus._ Dean figured, barring accidents, there’d be no question of surviving to face the council and see what he could beg and bluster out of them, but right now, Cas looking at him like — like that, he’s beginning to wonder.

“You said there were a lot of ways to do it. Do I have to get used to all of them?”

Dean coughs, trying not to squirm.

“Right. Uh — not really? Like, you might use some different muscles if you, uh, rode me, or if you presented, and depending on how — how we did it, you might be a little sore, even if you’ve done it before, but — the basic mechanics are the same, for the most part.”

Cas raises a brow.

“I already presented, Dean. Clearly. And — how would I _ride_ you? You’re not a horse.”

Dean snorts, despite himself .

“No, it — I mean — in that scenario, I am? You — that’s where you’re on top, and you straddle me, and — like you were doing with my fingers, earlier,” he tries to explain , neck hot. “You kept — lifting up and down, while I pushed ‘em into you.”

Cas looks intrigued.

“I enjoyed that,” he states, and Dean bites his lip.

“Okay. Awesome.”

“But it would be your penis. Your cock,” Cas amends. “I’d move up and down around your cock.”

All Dean can bring himself to do is nod.

“Interesting,” Cas says, still watching him with that _look,_ and Dean wants to either hide under the blanket or hastily get dinner off the bed so he can coax _Cas_ under the blanket instead. “Although — that’s nothing like riding a horse, Dean.”

“Right. Right, just — it’s a metaphor.”

“Ah. Metaphors,” Cas mutters , a faint squint to it. “ Then — what other ways can you fill me?”

Dean shrugs , casually running a hand through his hair, even as he feels sweat pricking at his neck.

“Uh. Like I said, you could present.”

“But I—"

“Not like that . It’s w hen you do the — you get on your knees and you lean forward and you kind of — stick your ass out. Omegas like to do it sometimes, and alphas — well, a lot of them are into seeing it. ”

“I did that in my last heat,” Cas says, giving him a surprised look, and _fuck,_ Dean can’t tell if this is an exploratory conversation or if Cas is looking to do something about that empty feeling forthwith, but while he’s prepared either way, he really, really hopes it’s the second thing. “It’s how I — when I was about to come, I wanted to roll over and—"

“Okay, well, that’s what that is,” Dean says quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. “The more you know, right?”

“Right.” Cas licks his lips. “What other ways?”

Dean coughs.

“Just — there’s a lot. You can, uh. You can have sex just about anywhere, on anything — against anything — and figure it out.”

“Oh.” Cas finally looks away, brow creasing. “Against anything? Like when you kiss me against the door? Could you—"

“Yep,” Dean confirms, afraid of how the rest of that sentence ends, especially if this conversation ends with Cas deciding it’s time to take a bath and go to bed early, curiosity the only thing that needed sating. “I could. Like I said, Cas. Anywhere. It’s just a question of logistics.”

“What about in the bath?”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“Probably. Be easier in the baths back at the castle, but — you could do it here. It’d be a tight fit, though. Might be better to just—"

He cuts off, shaking his head, and Cas gives him a sharp look.

“What?”

“Uh. Nothing?”

The look darkens.

“Dean.”

Dean grimaces.

“Just — it might be better to get you ready in the bath and then move to the bed.”

Cas lifts his brows.

“So . . . you’d give me your fingers, and then we’d return to bed and you’d give me your—"

“Yeah, like that,” Dean interrupts. “Like I said, you can always figure something out. Fun stuff, huh?”

Cas smiles.

“It is.” He cocks his head. “What about inside the carriage?”

Dean chokes.

“The carriage has _windows_.”

“But it’s very difficult to see in—"

“And it _moves._ You could go flying, if it runs over something. It’s _dangerous_.”

“But you let me sit in your lap and kiss you.”

“Cas. That’s different.”

“What about in my garden, when I visit?” Cas continues, ignoring him. “In theory, you’re the prince. You could tell everyone to stay away, couldn’t you?”

 _Could_ Dean put out a castle-wide order to avoid the garden so he can lay Cas out on a blanket in the grass in broad daylight and make love to him next to that ridiculous stone fountain while every single person in the castle probably knows exactly what’s happening, whether he put details in the order or not?

“Sure,” he says weakly, reaching for his water again. “I could do that.”

Cas lights up.

“I used to think of kissing you in the garden all the time,” he sighs, and Dean’s glass freezes against his mouth. “This will be nice. I’m looking forward to seeing it again.”

Dean blinks, lowering it.

“That’s good. I, uh. I’m glad you’ll get to. But — you thought about kissing me when we gardened?”

Cas shrugs.

“Technically, I just wanted to kiss you all the time, period.”

“Oh.”

There’s a brief silence, and then Cas clears his throat.

“I, um. I still do. So you know.”

“Yeah? That, uh. That’s good. I . . . I pretty much wanna kiss you all the time, too.”

Cas nods slowly, shifting again.

“Actually — are you finished with dinner, Dean?”

Dean practically throws his plate back on the tray, not even needing to think about it.

“I — yeah? Think so. Can always eat it later.”

“That’s true,” Cas agrees, looking _hopeful,_ of all things, and oh, God, as desperately as Dean’s been missing Cas back at the castle — as tentatively excited as he is for whatever he can talk the council into letting them have — he has no idea how he’s going to function with Cas being there all the time, not when he knows Cas wants to kiss him and do sexy things with him and _be with him always_. “ Are you . . . interested in another orgasm?”

“I mean, I — I wouldn’t say _no?”_

Cas squints slightly, and Dean lets out a breathless laugh, giddiness making his stomach light.

“Sorry. I’m really, _really_ interested in another orgasm, Cas. How about you?”

Cas breaks out into a smile, squint disappearing as it transforms his eyes, and Dean’s breath catches, his pulse quickening.

“Yes. I am. Will you fill me, again?”

Dean grins, and then he laughs again, and then he reaches for the tray, slipping out of bed and stumbling to the table with it before he hurries back.

“I’d love to, Cas,” he murmurs, and then he crawls into Cas’s lap, cups his jaw, and kisses him.

“Dean,” Cas whispers, once the candles are out and Dean is curled around him, the sheet carefully arranged between them as they settle in to sleep. A part of Cas is tempted to pull it free; there are numb patches, on his back, but he can still feel Dean’s warmth through most of it, and it had felt _good,_ to be touched there, to have Dean’s arms hold him close, unconcerned by the texture of the skin beneath them.

That seems like a lot, though. Neither of them dressed again, after the other orgasms (Cas is more sure than ever that these things are even better after the first time, when you know how it’s going to be and all you have to do is look forward to it, _especially_ when something Dean referred to as ‘round-two perks’ allow him to slide back inside with none of the drawn-out procedure of before). Instead, Dean ran him a bath and spent a full hour kissing him and moving the cloth over his very, very clean body before he thoroughly washed Cas’s hair, licking at the shallow bite on his shoulder despite the soap that _must_ have slid down it (not that Cas was in any state to pay attention) and when Dean finally instructed him to wait in bed while he cleaned himself, Cas refused.

No, in the interests of fairness — because Cas lives in Winchester, and Winchester believes in being just — he very carefully cleaned Dean’s penis for him, even going so far as to abandon the cloth entirely as he diligently circled Dean’s length, hand firmly sliding around it, and the only reason Dean’s bath didn’t last nearly as long as Cas’s is because he insisted he had washed his hair last night and it didn’t need it a second time.

(He hauled Cas back to bed and ate him, instead, and though Cas was beginning to feel a soreness and ache in his posterior, tender where Dean had stretched him —

Dean’s tongue felt very, very nice lapping against it.)

Anyway, Cas had been roped into several rounds of gin, after that, not that he minded terribly or played with any real intent, and when Dean had started yawning and Cas’s eyes had begun to droop, Cas put away the cards and Dean rearranged the bedding and finally, they crawled beneath the covers and slotted in together.

“Hm?” Dean asks, the arm slung over Cas’s stomach shifting a little, and Cas settles more firmly back against him, casually laying his own arm over Dean’s, trapping it there.

“What are you going to tell the council?”

Dean tenses slightly, though his arm clasps Cas a little tighter.

“Um. Whatever I need to?”

Cas hesitates.

“It’s alright if I can’t stay all the time,” he finally says, though a part of him resents that he has to. “Don’t push them.”

Dean huffs.

“I won’t push them.”

“Alright, but — something is better than nothing, Dean. If they seem reluctant, we should try to just arrange our visits to the best of our ability.”

“Yeah? What happened to ‘always?’”

Cas sighs.

“Dean. You have to have — realistic expectations, or else you’ll lead a very unhappy life.” He covers Dean’s hand with his own, squeezing. “Ask. I hope they’ll say yes — so much, Dean. But — when all is said and done, we’ll take what we can get. And I promise to be grateful for it.”

“Really?” He can hear Dean’s frown. “’Cause I’m gonna try, everything I can, and I’ll be honest, man. I’m gonna be kinda pissed if all we get is a weekend here and there.”

Anxiety rushes through him, at that.

“You think that’s all we might get?” Cas had thought, even if he couldn’t have Dean, not the way he really wants to, he could at least have him sometimes .

Dean had already seemed confident, regarding visits. When Cas thought of compromising on the _always,_ he’d somehow imagined at least getting more than he did, now; that Cas could either stay for weeks at a time, or that he might get longer, might just have to allow Dean to conduct his business, might occupy himself with other things while he waited, the way they were before.

That’s not what he wants, either, but it would be more than — than just a few days, when one of them could steal away to the other.

“No. And that’s why I’d be _pissed_. I . . . I meant it, when I said I’d fix things. All we get _now_ is a weekend here and there, but — you said you wanted more. And so do I. The — the here and there isn’t cutting it.”

Cas nods.

“But it’s better than nothing,” he reminds Dean.

“Right, and whatever we get, or don’t get, we’ll make it work, but — I’m gonna be disappointed. I’m not gonna be _grateful._ ”

“You’re too used to getting what you want,” Cas says gently. “Things as good as this — as you and I, together — they’re worth being grateful for, Dean. To whatever degree you get them.”

“No,” Dean protests, squeezing him tighter, his chin settling over Cas’s shoulder. “Things as good as this are worth _fighting_ for, Cas. And that’s what I’m gonna do.”

_And when it comes to your own happiness? That is the last place you just be accepting whatever happens!_

For a moment, Cas can’t quite find words.

But then he simply tugs on Dean’s hand, bringing it to his mouth, and presses his lips against the skin there.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “ But — don’t upset them.”

“Cas. I’m not going to upset them.”

“You can be very upsetting, Dean.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?”

“You can,” Cas insists. “And your council is disagreeable. I don’t think they care for you the way I do.”

Dean is silent for a moment.

“The way you do?” he echoes, and Cas shrugs.

“I don’t think anyone cares for you the way I do,” he says quietly, and then nudges Dean’s hand back down to his stomach, broad palm warm over the skin there. “Move the sheet. I want to feel you.”

Another long silence follows.

And then, Dean takes a deep breath, pulling back, and after a beat, Cas feels the sheet slip away from his back.

“You sure?”

Cas lightly strokes over his hand, comforted by the way it presses against him, low on his belly.

“Do they bother you? My scars?”

“ _Dude_ . Hell no.”

Cas smiles, though Dean can’t see him.

“Then I want to feel you,” he concludes.

He waits, patient, as he always is, and after a moment, Dean shifts.

“Okay. But — I’ve got a condition.”

“A condition,” Cas echoes, already thinking of the last time Dean had a condition. “What is that?”

“I get to kiss you good night.”

Cas lifts his brows.

“Neither of us are going anywhere.” He pauses. “Is it still . . . customary, to kiss at night?”

Dean laughs.

“Yeah. When you share a bed with someone you kiss other times,” he offers, as expected, and Cas nods.

“You didn’t kiss me last time.”

“You were spooning me, last time,” Dean protests, just as Cas feels his hand slide away, fingertips lightly drawing past his waist and trailing toward his spine. “Kinda hard to focus when someone with arms like yours has you all wrapped up in them.”

***

Cas shivers.

“Just my arms?”

“Hm?”

“I was wrapped around you in many ways, tonight,” Cas points out, arching slightly as Dean’s fingers trace over him with more confidence. “I hope you enjoyed it as much as my arms.”

Dean’s hand pauses.

“Cas.”

“Yes?”

“You know what you’re doing, right?”

“I’m waiting for you to spoon me.”

“No. No, that’s not it.”

“Making conversation?” Cas supplies curiously.

Dean says nothing for a moment, and then abruptly, his hand pulls away. Before Cas can ask, he’s shifting close again, pressing up against Cas’s back, hand slipping back over his stomach.

Cas sucks in a breath, and not just from the feel of it, Dean’s chest hot and bare, flush against his back.

“You’re getting —"

“Yeah,” Dean murmurs, kissing his shoulder. “I am. Good night, Cas.”

“Wait.” Cas swallows. “Don’t you want to—"

Dean tilts his head, mouthing over his throat.

“In the morning,” he murmurs. “If you want.”

“But—"

“You have work,” he continues, brushing his lips across Cas’s jaw, despite the stubble. “It’s bedtime.”

Cas tries to turn, but Dean tightens his hold, shifting enough to catch his mouth as his head twists back.

“Go to sleep, Cas.”

Cas huffs, wriggling on instinct, trying to fit into him more snugly.

“In the morning, then,” he mutters darkly, and Dean laughs, squeezing tight and rolling forward in a way that _absolutely_ doesn’t aid in Cas’s desire to sleep.

“Good night, sweetheart.”

“Good night.” He hesitates, then shifts again, pulse a little uneven. “ But — what about this? Could we do it this way? Could you spoon me, and — and fill me, at the same time?”

“I could,” Dean murmurs, and then —

He has the nerve to _nibble_ at Cas’s shoulder, utterly shameless and provoking, and Cas gapes at the sheet in front of him, body drawing tight.

“ _Dean,_ ” he hisses.

“Maybe in the morning,” Dean adds, low and smug in his ear, and then he rolls his hips again, hardness unmistakable as it nudges into the curve of Cas’s rear.

Cas groans.

“I lied,” he breathes out , shuddering as Dean’s leg slips over his, slowly rubbing against it. “You’re _incredibly_ upsetting.”

“Well, don’t worry,” Dean whispers. “I’m not gonna do this to the council.”

Cas freezes.

And then he makes a face, as disturbed by that as he was by the thought of Wallace luring Dean away to provide orgasms, if for entirely different reasons.

“You’re _bizarre_.”

“Yeah?” Dean hums, the hand on Cas’s stomach suddenly slipping lower, Dean’s fingertips brushing against a significantly more sensitive part of him. “You said that before. That you liked me.”

“I didn’t like thinking about _that_.”

“No?” Those fingers slip even lower, curving over his rapidly hardening penis. “Are you jealous, Cas?”

“No,” Cas manages. “But — I thought of you doing this with George, and it was — _deeply_ unpleasant.”

Dean pauses, choking out a laugh.

“You’ve never even seen George.”

“And I never will, fortunately. It is, as they say in Winchester, the thought that counts,” he says, dry, and Dean _giggles._

Then he presses closer, rubbing against Cas, and just when Cas is about to plead for him not to begin things he doesn’t intend to finish, Dean’s hand wraps around his penis.

“’S’weird. You made me think about George naked, but — I still kinda want some good-night orgasms.”

Cas sags in relief.

“Don’t think about George naked, then,” he says quickly. “Touch me.”

Dean doesn’t push inside him again, to Cas’s disappointment, but he stays close, kissing Cas’s shoulder and stroking his penis as he rocks against Cas’s hopelessly slicking opening, and even though Cas feels vaguely like he needs another bath afterward —

He falls asleep with a smile.

Good-night orgasms or not, Cas apparently took the whole ‘in the morning thing’ seriously.

“Jesus — you’re a _fiend_ ,” Dean pants, muscles straining as he fights not to rock upward, to just stay put and let Cas do his thing, because even though it’s not even six o’-fucking-clock in the morning and Dean went to bed blissed-out-but-totally-drained not-quite-enough hours prior, Cas is up — like, _really_ up — and apparently has some untapped store of energy he wants to work out before he has to go haul shit around at the docks.

“You said ‘in the morning,’” Cas informs him breathlessly, and if not for the slick, tight grip of him on Dean’s cock, Dean would complain about the lighting being too poor to really appreciate what Cas’s thighs look like as he works up and down, riding Dean for all he’s worth.

“I _did,_ but that was before—"

“What is it going to be like?” Cas interrupts, watching him with unfairly sharp, curious eyes, and if he weren’t gasping and leaking all over Dean’s stomach, Dean would assume this was somehow just another weekday morning for him. “If — if they’ re agreeable. ”

“W-what?”

“And — what exactly is your plan? You weren’t clear. What will you do, when you get there? When do you think you’re most likely to come back?”

“Oh.” Dean clears his throat, caving to impulse and squeezing at Cas’s thighs a little, heat flaring in his gut when Cas stutters and groans , sharp, tiny movements around Dean’s cock before he sinks back down. “Just — I’m gonna go home, and then I’m gonna go talk to a few people—"

“Who?”

“Council members. The nice ones.” Dean clears his throat, struggling against the urge to just roll Cas over and ruthlessly fuck into him until he’s moaning and writhing and hopefully understands why it’s not fair to expect Dean to hold a conversation under these circumstances.

“About what?”

Dean swallows, wincing as Cas pauses on the downstroke, clamping tight around him and circling his hips experimentally.

“About — about how I want you to stay with me. A-all the time. ”

Cas beams, lifting up again, and oh, God—

“And then what?”

“And then . . . uh. Hopefully I’ll — I’ll ta-ahh, _fuck,_ ” he groans, Cas slamming back down, because apparently Cas likes it _hard_ and _fast_ and he has zero mercy for the fact that Dean’s weak and in love with him and also very sensitive to being all wrapped up in Cas’s tight, perfect heat, slick gushing out around his sheathed cock. “ _Christ_ , Cas, aren’t you _sore_?”

“A little,” Cas agrees, panting as he slides up and down. “It — it feels good, though. Especially when I — like this—" He pushes his thighs out, roughly shoving down onto Dean’s cock with a wince and a satisfied smile, and part of Dean wonders if he’s maybe dreaming. “Like that. The soreness feels good.”

Dean bites back a whimper.

“Awesome,” he chokes out, patting Cas’s thighs, and Cas gives him a warm look, the heat low in Dean’s stomach abruptly disturbed by a stupid, fluttery sensation. “Just — sometimes it’s less good, later? Like when you’re working?”

Cas slows, looking contemplative.

“Do you think?”

Dean nods.

“I just . . . don’t want you to regret anything later.”

“I don’t think I’ll regret it,” Cas murmurs, only lightly bouncing up and down, a different kind of hell that’s equally special and maybe Dean should ask if he can touch Cas’s cock or something because he’s not sure how much longer he’s going to last and Cas is giving no indication that he’s close to being finished with him. “Even if I end up very uncomfortable.”

“Okay. Well. I — I hope you won’t be.”

Cas abruptly drops his hips, Dean sliding fully into the tight, slick clasp of his body, and yeah, Dean should definitely, _definitely_ try to move him along, here. Cas lingers there, eyeing Dean speculatively, and Dean twitches uncomfortably inside of him, suppressing the urge to brace his feet against the bed and push up because Cas is figuring things out, damn it, and Dean is going to be a good whatever-he-is and let him.

(Even if it’s really, really hard.)

(In all the ways.)

“Will _you_ be sore?”

“Uh. Some of me? Probably different things. Shouldn’t be too bad, though.”

Cas nods, a glint in his eye that would probably have Dean feeling pretty damn uncomfortable, if he weren’t already buried inside him.

“Would you like to come to work with me again?

Dean grins.

“You gonna bring me as backup for when you don’t feel like doing anything ?”

Cas shrugs.

“If you’d like.” He starts moving again, back arching a little, a small shudder rippling through him. “Mostly — I’d enjoy the company.”

Dean licks his lips, a vaguely melty sensation happening inside his chest.

“Yeah?”

“Ye s. You still have to leave again. And especially today, I don’t think I’ll like being apart from you.” Cas takes a deep breath, reaching for Dean’s hands. “What will you do after you talk to the councilmembers?”

Dean blinks, struggling to keep up, _I don’t think I’ll like being apart from you_ settling somewhere in the vicinity of his heart with somewhat terrifying sweetness.

“I . . . I’m gonna talk to the whole council. And tell them that I want you to come stay at the castle with me. ”

Cas moans, squeezing tight around Dean’s cock, and Dean watches him with wide eyes, because if he didn’t know any better, he’d say Cas was kinda _getting off_ on this .

“How will it be?” he whispers.

“You mean — how do I think they’ll react?

Cas shakes his head.

“How will it be, if I stay? Will it be like before?”

“Not if I can help it, ” Dean says, not needing to think about it. “ It wasn’t enough, before. I don’t wanna have to walk up that many flights of stairs to get to you.”

A violent tremor wracks Cas’s body, and he grinds down onto Dean’s cock with a rough sound.

“But — what’s the alternative? ”

Dean hesitates, and not just because Cas _grinding down on his cock_ is super fucking distracting.

“We share.”

“Share what, Dean?”

“A room. I don’t care whose. Just as long as it has both of us in it.”

Cas takes a deep breath.

“Are you going to tell them that?”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“I think they’ll know, Cas.”

“You should tell them, anyway,” he protests. “Or they might be upset later.”

“Seriously? You want me to go address the council and tell them you’re gonna be my new roommate?”

“Yes. Tell them I’m going to share your bed and — whatever else we’re going to do.” Cas gives him a searching look. “What else _are_ we going to do?”

And holy shit , Dean’s not repeating _any_ of this to council, thank you very much, but Cas is _totally_ getting off on it and Dean is absolutely going to deliver.

He tightens his hold on Cas’s hands, threading their fingers together.

“Are you sure about that, Cas ? You really want me to tell them what we’re going to do, if you stay?

Cas nods, pupils wide and dark as he watches Dean, pace slowing.

“You want me to tell them how I wanna kiss you every morning, first thing when I wake up?”

Cas lights up, and Dean can see his stomach flex as his abs pull tight on the downstroke.

“You want me to tell them how I wanna eat breakfast with you and feed you apples and try to talk you into snuggling with me afterward before we have to leave?”

“Dean,” Cas sighs, eyes soft, and Dean grins.

“About how I’ d like to take you out to the training field and teach you so you know for _sure_ there’s never gonna be a fight you’ll lose? So my soldiers draw straws to see who has to let you practice on them, because you’re such a fucking badass and I’m too chicken?”

Cas laughs, a laugh Dean can feel where they’re joined, and Dean laughs, too, even though it wasn’t necessarily a joke, and turns their hands, squeezing.

“You seriously expect me to go in there and tell them how hot that would get me?” he asks next, and Cas slows, giving him a questioning look. “That when I watch you kicking ass and training to beat the ever-living shit out of whatever asshole’s unlucky enough to cross you, I’ll probably get hard and think things I shouldn’t and start counting the seconds till I can call it a day for everyone and take you back to my — to our room and lick the sweat right off your body?”

Cas’s nose crinkles, movements halting.

“Why would you want to—"

“You want me to tell them how if you stayed, if I got to do all of that, I would ask you, very nicely, if I could take you to bed and lay you out and have you wrap your goddamn perfect thighs around me while I fucked you until you were tearing at the sheets and everybody within three floors could hear exactly what we’re doing?”

Cas’s lips part.

“You want me to explain to them _how_ I’d do that, that you like the slide, that you like it when it’s _fast_ , that you like it when I push into you, _hard,_ and that when we’d finished and I’d given you a bath and watched you eat dinner, I’d really, really wanna take you back to bed and do it all over again?”

Cas is like a vise around him, hips stuttering in something that couldn’t possibly be considered a rhythm of any kind, slick leaking out around Dean’s cock and slipping over his throbbing, swollen knot, but Dean can’t be bothered to care, all his attention reserved for the look on Cas’s face, flushed and dark-eyed and pure, unmistakable lust.

“I . . . I don’t know that that would be appropriate.”

“No?” Dean lifts his brows. “You don’t want me to tell them how good you look, when I do that? How some nights, I would suck you, would give you my fingers until you were squirming, rocking back and forth ‘cause you couldn’t decide which one you want more? How when I eat you out, you push back against my face, make it hard for me to breathe, get me soaked in your slick because of how much you like getting my tongue? You don’t want me to explain how much I _love_ that, how fucking _good_ you taste, how I could do that for hours, if you’d let me, if I didn’t know you’d come long before I had my fill?”

Cas shudders, jerking in his lap.

“Dean,” he hisses. “Dean, that — that’s _so_ vulgar.”

“Right, sorry,” Dean whispers, and then he finally lets himself push up, watching for Cas’s reaction, to make sure it’s okay.

Cas moans, clutching Dean’s hands to keep himself stable, and immediately moves into the thrust.

“Alright. So . . . you _don’t_ want me to tell them all of that? You don’t want me to tell them that I would — I’d really, really like it if you stayed, because I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone or anything in my life, and I don’t wanna spend a single goddamn day without you if I don’t have to? I should keep that to myself?”

Cas’s mouth falls open, eyes widening, blue barely visible around the black.

He abruptly stills, settling against Dean, breaths ragged.

“You what?”

Dean shrugs, a little too turned on and a little too happy to be as embarrassed as he probably should be.

“I can’t make any promises,” he reminds him, much as he hates to, because all the dirty things aside, starting and ending his days with Cas sounds like more than any undeserving bastard like himself could ever dream of. “ But — I could tell them, if you think it would help.”

Cas just looks at him for a moment, chest still heaving, blue eyes searching.

And then he blinks, nodding.

“This felt very good. I’d like to be on top of you again, sometime.” He clears his throat, clutching Dean’s hands, hard. “But I’d like to be on my back and have you — have you fuck me the way you said, now.”

And Dean —

Dean doesn’t need to be told twice.

***

It’s fortunate that Dean accompanies him to the docks, even if he has to leave for business in town when afternoon arrives, because Cas is positively _useless_.

He’s not sure which preoccupies his thoughts more: the bodily reminders he feels of Dean’s earlier presence inside him, evoking last night and this morning and a whole host of wonderful, remembered sensation, or Dean’s words echoing in his head, the things he’s promised, that he’s told Cas.

He wants Cas to stay.

He wants Cas to _stay._

The council could say no, could deny them anything more than they already have — could potentially separate them for good, though Cas is trying to pretend that won’t happen; and even if they don’t, Anna will be furious, and Cas will miss Mills Park, desperately, but — he could be in Lawrence, with Sam and Charlie and Kate and Pamela and _Dean._

He could _be_ with Dean, almost without limitation, even, at least compared to now. He wouldn’t need a portrait or a grey robe or a blanket with Dean’s scent, because Cas might be able to see him, first thing in the morning and last thing at night, might get to have his scent directly from the source, might never be left wanting at all, at least not until Dean decides to send him away.

And — it’s possible, if Cas stays, if they’re together, if Ca s is part of his life, and Dean likes it, as much as he seems to be saying he likes Cas, then —

What if Dean _never_ sent him away?

No, Dean would never bite him, would never marry him, would never do any of those other ridiculous things others seem to want to insist on, but —

They’re going to be together. Every space Cas so desperately wishes to occupy, all the places he’s been terrified that someday, someone else might take —

What if they could be his? _Just_ his?

It’s a heady possibility, though he tries to remind himself he’s more likely to end up with some sort of compromise in between — he’s still unclear on what, exactly, Dean intends to say to the council — and while he’s not sore in any way that isn’t perversely satisfying, Cas finds himself distracted, anyway.

He loses count of how many times he rewards himself for a successful transport from ship to dock and vice versa by kissing Dean, and only because of Dean’s vocal insistence that ‘it’s _unsanitary,_ Cas!’ does he resist the temptation to drop to his knees and suck Dean’s cock, right there in the cargo bay, overwhelmed by all his feelings and desperate to somehow let Dean know.

_I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone or anything in my life, and I don’t wanna spend a single goddamn day without you if I don’t have to._

He kisses Dean for so long, when it’s time for Dean to put his shirt back on and go into town, that passersby begin to whistle at them, and when Cas walks past the other workers, Mr. Wilkins stammers out a cryptic, “Well done, Mr. Novak!” a few of the others red-faced and awkward-looking beside him.

Anyway, Cas works a _little_ more efficiently, with Dean out of sight and out of reach, but he feels restless and gleeful for the remainder of the day, and it is to his immense frustration that he arrives home before three o’ clock has even struck, early and hopeful, and finds the house completely empty of Dean’s presence.

He’s glad Dean is going to make more safe houses, or find a solution for the women with children, or whatever it is that requires so many meetings in town, but he can’t help but wish Dean would contrive to work only when Cas _didn’t_ want his time for himself.

Anyway, Max is sketching in the parlor when he ducks inside, just to make sure Dean isn’t waiting there again , and she brightens when she sees him, setting down her pen.

“Oh, hello , Castiel. You’re back early.”

“I tried,” he says, disappointed when the rest of the room proves empty. “Dean hasn’t been here yet, has he?”

She shakes her head.

“No, not yet. I was hoping he’d get here earlier.” She looks down. “I was thinking about asking him something.”

Cas moves to take one of the chairs, giving her a curious look.

“What?”

She bites her lip, then shrugs.

“I’m still not sure yet. I wouldn’t have thought to, but — he waited in here, yesterday.” She pauses, expression thoughtful. “He — he’s much more amenable than I thought a prince would be.”

Cas nods.

“I’ve always thought so. Even when he’s otherwise being difficult — if you ask Dean for something, he generally tries to make it happen.”

She nods slowly.

“Oh. That’s a nice quality to have. Especially for an alpha.”

Cas shrugs.

“It’s a double-edged sword, though. It makes him very easy to take advantage of.” He sighs, frowning at the table. “I worry about him.”

Although — perhaps he shouldn’t. It’s true, that Cas might take advantage of him — might even now, be taking advantage of him — but if Dean’s talks with the council succeed, if Cas really does get to be with him _always_ . . .

Then it’s possible Cas will be the _only_ person able to truly take advantage — and if the only person to ever take advantage of Dean again is Cas, then . . .

Well, it could be much worse, couldn’t it?

“That’s true,” Max says slowly, oblivious to his guilty smugness. “But — he’s a prince. I don’t think most people would try.” She hesitates. “Maybe it just makes him — more reasonable. Or — or kinder.”

Cas smiles.

“Well, I don’t know about _reasonable_ — but yes. He’s very kind. He doesn’t always see things as they are, at first, but if you explain it to him — once he understands, Dean is always kind.”

“I see,” she mumbles, oddly shrewd. “Maybe I _will_ ask him.”

Cas tilts his head.

“Ask him what?”

“Ask who what?” Dean calls from the door, and delight streaks through Cas at the sound, his head turning.

“Dean.” He beams, hastily leaving his chair and going to meet him, relishing in the warm look Dean gives him as he approaches. “Hello.”

He reaches for Dean’s cravat — just for support, though if it happens to come undone in the process, he supposes it can’t be helped — and leans in to kiss him.

Dean immediately ducks to the side, throwing an anxious glance over Cas’s shoulder, and Cas frowns.

“Why did you do that?”

Dean lifts his brows.

“Dude,” he mutters. “Are we allowed to kiss in front of her?”

There’s a smothered laugh from the table, and Dean winces.

“She can totally hear me, can’t she?”

“I can,” Max volunteers, sounding apologetic. “I can pretend not to, though. Or I can look at my sketchbook for a few minutes, if you want.”

“Thank you, Max, please do,” Cas says quickly, and then reaches for Dean, grasping the back of his neck more securely this time, and kisses him.

Dean smiles into it, and then he slips his arms around Cas’s waist and tugs him in closer, mouth softening as he tilts his head and deepens the kiss, and this time, Cas is the one who grins, pulling back slightly, though he stays close, their noses brushing.

“If they let me stay with you — are you going to kiss me this way every day?” he can’t help but ask, and Dean grins, squeezing him tighter.

“Every day you let me.”

Cas simply tucks his head in the crook of Dean’s neck, wrapping his arms around him.

“Every day, then,” he agrees.

He allows himself another moment to breathe Dean in — clearly, undoing the cravat was a good idea — then reluctantly pulls away.

“I think Max wanted to ask you something. ”

“Only if he has time,” Max protests. “I don’t mean to be a bother.”

Surprised, Dean gives Cas a curious look, but Cas can only shrug in response. After a beat, Dean’s arms fall away and he starts forward, dropping into the chair Cas just vacated and giving Max an encouraging look.

“Alright, shoot. What did you wanna know about?”

Max hesitates, clasping her hands together in her lap and looking down.

Then she clears her throat.

“I just — there — there’s a very important matter, which hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, but — I was thinking, and — and I believe a solution has presented itself, but it calls upon someone to act.” She coughs. “Someone who can do things, I mean.”

Dean raises his brows.

“Okay. Uh. I . . . don’t know if I’m a someone like that—"

“You are,” she interjects quickly. “Or — I think you are.”

Dean nods.

“Alright. What’s the, uh, the matter, then?”

She takes a deep breath, finally meeting his eyes.

“You see, your highness — I don’t know if you know — there are a lot of us, and we can be hard to keep track of, but — the thing is, Mr. Cooke’s son doesn’t even _want_ it, but Mr. Cooke would like to retire, and he’s thinking he might sell it, then, which — I know a shop must be very expensive, and perhaps you do know, but if you don’t — well, Billie had hers taken away, and I never saw it, but it was one like Mr. Cooke’s, as far as I understand, and I know it was the law, but — but the law was wrong. And I think someone should make it right.”

Cas stares, slightly open-mouthed, as he realizes what where Max is going with this.

“I think,” she continues, briefly glancing down again before her shoulders tense and she lifts her chin, meeting Dean’s eyes once more. “I think — you should buy her this one.”

Dean just stares at her, equally startled, though Cas can’t be sure _Dean’s_ managed to follow correctly.

“Unless — I actually don’t know anything about the kingdom’s finances, so maybe it isn’t possible, but you bought Castiel a dress with three hundred real pearls on it, so maybe you _could_ buy Billie a bookshop. Please,” she adds, abruptly uncomfortable. “If — if you don’t mind.”

Dean opens his mouth, then shuts it, brow creasing.

“So . . . you want me to buy Cooke’s place? For Billie, since she lost hers when her brother inherited. Right?”

Max nods, looking hopeful.

“Okay. Uh. That — I see your point, but — Cooke’s is the premier bookseller in Sioux Falls. That, uh. That’s kind of a big purchase.”

Max purses her lips.

“Yes, but Billie’s was one of the largest in the _kingdom_. I think — I think it would be fair. It would be just,” she adds, and Dean smiles slightly.

“Yeah. And I — I agree with you, it’s just — that’s something I’d have to talk to my council about? I can’t, uh. I can’t make that kind of decision on my own.”

Max quickly nods.

“But you will? You’ll talk to them?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will. They might want to arrange it as an investment of some kind, to justify it, but — we might be able to work something out.”

She lights up.

“Really?”

“That’s not a promise,” Dean says hastily. “Like I said, I can’t — I can’t promise you anything, ‘ cause whatever happens, it’s not ultimately up to me. But — I’ll try.”

Cas leans back against the archway, an absurdly light, fluttery feeling in his chest as he listens, the kind of feeling he gets when Dean looks at him over breakfast or tells him he’s gorgeous or wears the interesting hat Anna made him.

He loves him, so, _so_ very much.

“Thank you,” Max breathes, beaming down at her sketchbook. “Thank you very much, your highness.”

“Of course. Thank you for, uh. Talking to me about it.” He smiles. “It’d be cool to see that story when you’re done with it, by the way.”

Max looks pleased .

“If I manage to finish it. And it’s not too bad.”

Dean laughs.

“I’m sure it won’t be. Not unless you decide to like, kill everyone off at the end.”

She blinks.

“They’re already dead, your highness,” she points out gently, and Dean makes a face.

“Right. Forgot about that. Uh. Well, don’t make them more dead?”

Max just looks at him for a moment.

And then she laughs and picks up her pen.

“I think Castiel wants you to go kiss him some more,” she says, still smiling. “I hope you both have a nice evening.”

Cas, for his part, doesn’t bother to deny it.

Anyway, Dean gives him an extremely satisfactory bath, to say the least (an apology for returning late, supposedly, although Cas suspects things would have proceeded in exactly that way even if Dean _had_ been waiting), and in addition to his appreciation for said bath, Cas finds himself so full of . . . admiration, perhaps, for Dean’s courteous treatment of Max, that he determinedly coaxes Dean to lie down on the bed afterward so Cas can suck him the way he didn’t get to on the ship.

He gets nearly all of Dean in his mouth, this time, and though he chokes when he tries to swallow his release the way he’s been wanting to, Dean just tugs him upward and licks his mouth and chin clean, mumbling enthusiastically about how amazing it was and how incredible Cas is and a whole host of other ridiculous, wonderful things.

It tickles, and it gives Cas a distinct, irrepressible feeling of _happiness,_ light in his chest, and a part of him is almost relieved to have an excuse to clean up and dress, setting off downstairs to retrieve dinner. He stands in the hallway for a long moment, hand over his racing heart, trying to steady himself amid a joy so great it’s overwhelming.

It’s foolish, of course. It’s all mysterious to him, Dean’s plans and intentions, the likelihood of the council’s agreement to any of it, and while hope is one thing, expectation is entirely different, and he shouldn’t have it.

He should be tempering that hope, the way he told Dean to, reminding himself that he is content with what he has, that if he can’t have anything more, after all, he can accept that.

He isn’t, though . He’s hoping, wildly and blindly, caught up on all the things Dean said this morning, and no matter how insistently logic and experience try to intrude —

He can’t help it.

A part of him just — has _faith._

Cas takes a slow, deep breath, and then he sets off downstairs.

When he gets to the bottom, however, he finds his sister, slowly peeling off her gloves and staring into space, and he barely moves away from the last step before he can scent her distress.

His happiness falters.

“Anna?”

She looks up, blinking, and after a moment, she smiles, though her eyes remain troubled.

“Hi, Cas. Are you getting dinner?”

He frowns.

“Is everything alright?”

She hesitates.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” He narrows his eyes. “You smell upset.”

She makes a face.

“I’m allowed to be upset sometimes.”

“And I’m allowed to be upset about it, too.”

She sighs, gaze flicking to the stairs.

“Dean is still here, isn’t he? We can discuss it later. Or never,” she adds under her breath, beginning to unbutton her coat, and Cas tilts his head.

“Where were you?”

She pauses, then resumes unbuttoning.

“Delivering a commission.”

“It’s a little late for that.”

“Well, I finished it late, Cas.”

“Why would delivering it upset you?”

She sighs.

“Cas. Do you remember when you first got here, and I pestered and harassed you into talking to me and leaving your room?”

“Yes.”

“I’m very sorry for doing that. I should have given you time to just be upset.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “Though you didn’t. Why are you upset, Anna?”

She rolls her eyes.

“You’re a brat, you know that?”

“So you’ve said.” He gives her a pointed look. “Anna.”

His sister huffs.

“I’m serious. I don’t want to spoil your night. Besides, it will be a while before either one of us have to actively worry about.”

Which — it’s disturbing that she would put it that way, as though it’s somehow also a problem for _him_ , separate from his concern for Anna.

“Anna. What is it?”

She’s silent for a long moment, just looking at him.

And then she shakes her head, shoulders sagging.

“Be—I was told, this evening, that Edgewater wants to talk about marriage.” She clears her throat. “Between Dean and Princess Isabela.”

Cas goes a little cold.

“No,” he immediately protests. “Dean said nothing of that. And he — last night, he told me he wanted me to stay with him. That he wanted to be with me.”

He didn’t say he _wouldn’t_ marry anyone, but — he wants to share a _room_ with Cas, a bed, to kiss him in the mornings.

How could he marry someone, if he intends to give that to _Cas_?

Strangely, Anna looks more tired than surprised by the news.

“And I’m sure he wants to,” she says. “But — that doesn’t preclude him from marrying, Cas.”

“Yes, it does,” Cas insists. “It has to. That — that doesn’t sound anything like what we talked about.”

In fact, nowhere, in the things Dean told him, the things that Dean teased about telling his council, was there mention of any other, princess or otherwise.

Cas supposes Dean never said there wouldn’t be, but — he assumed.

Wouldn’t Dean have _told_ him?

“Well, I hope you’re right,” she mutters, then shrugs out of her coat, throwing it over one of the hooks on the rack. “Come on. I’ll help you prepare a tray.”

Disturbed, Cas follows her to the kitchen.

Anna’s been wrong, before. Town gossip was wrong about _him_ , in many ways.

Cas will simply have to ask Dean.

“Anna says Edgewater wants to discuss marriage,” he blurts out, as soon as the tray is on the bed and he’s tucked back into it, unable to keep it in any longer. “Your council will decline, right?”

Dean freezes, fingers hovering over a fork, and he swallows.

“They . . . they did tell them I was, uh. Busy right now.”

“They already _asked?_ And — you’re busy right _now_ ,” Cas repeats, alarm surging. “What about later?”

“They — they’ll probably revisit it, later. But I’ll think of something,” Dean adds hastily. “I don’t — obviously, I don’t want to marry Bela.”

Cas gives him a sharp look.

“I thought her name was Isabela.”

“Sure, but whatever you wanna call her, I’m not marrying her.”

“Then why didn’t you tell them that already?”

Dean hesitates.

“Just — I didn’t want to cause a fuss.”

Cas stares, incredulous.

“You cause a fuss _all the time_ , Dean. Why wouldn’t you just say?”

“Because they might not have let me come _back_ to Mills Park. It’s the council , man. You have to be careful.”

“But—" Cas starts , dismayed. “What about later?”

Dean lifts his brows.

“I’ll tell them I won’t do it.”

“And they’ll accept that?”

Dean hesitates, looking away with a grimace.

“Okay. It — it might get complicated. But I’ll figure it out.”

For a moment, Cas just looks at him.

And then it’s as if all the air rushes out of his body, shoulders sagging as he deflates.

“So you might marry her.”

“Cas—"

“What if she expects to share your room?” Cas swallows against a sudden lump in his throat. “You’ll at least have to bed her, for her to have your heirs. What if she wants to share your bed?”

“Then I’d tell her _hell no_! I’m not sleeping with Bela, in any sense of the word, whether they make me marry her or not.”

Cas shakes his head.

“If they make you marry her, they’ll make you bed her, too.”

“They won’t,” Dean insists. “And even if they try — I didn’t do that to you, did I? They can drug me all they want, you know I won’t do it.”

“Dean, you _have_ to have heirs.”

Dean winces.

“I . . . okay, _yeah,_ but—"

“And you thought it would be taking advantage.” Cas clutches the blanket, upset. “The princess will be willing, Dean. There will be nothing to stay you.”

“Nothing to stay me?” Dean repeats, disbelieving. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” Cas snaps. “How could I be anything else? You — you’re going to marry and bed her and let her have your children and whatever else the council tells you to do with her . Of course I’m serious.”

He can’t believe he thought — as if all problems and obligations disappeared, just because Dean held him and kissed him and told him he _wanted_ him. Wanting has been one of the most pointless acts of Cas’s entire existence; why on earth did he suppose Dean being the one to want would get him any further?

So, so very foolish.

“Cas,” Dean huffs, reaching out. “You’re overthinking this. First things first, we get them to let you stay. Dad said we’d wait a few months, while I figure out the safe houses. We’ll worry about it then.”

“How do you expect me not to worry about it?” Cas demands, knocking his hand away. “How can I — how can I enjoy being with you, if I know exactly when and how it will be taken away?”

“Because it _won’t,_ ” Dean insists. “When they bring it up again, I’ll tell them no.”

“Like you told them no when they sent you to collect my sister?”

Dean recoils.

“Cas. That’s—" He shuts his mouth, jaw tight. “Look, you’re right. I should have. And I could have, in hindsight. I was — I was looking for someone else to fix it for me. But — I know better, now. You taught me. And if they ask that — I will say no. I swear.”

Cas wants to trust that, he _does,_ but — it’s hard. It’s hard, because Dean has done remarkable things, has gone to incredible lengths for Cas and for others, but accepting the fallout from Cas’s escape and advocating for the women who need Mills Park are entirely different than refusing an order.

Cas isn’t sure, if the path is unclear, if the pressure is great enough, that Dean won’t simply obey.

“Have you ever said no to them? And I don’t mean — dodging their requests, or the pressure they put on you, the way you did with me. Have you ever directly stood against them?”

“I told them I let you escape.”

“I was already gone.” Cas swallows. “Without that — you would only have let me go when they were likely to want me gone, anyway.”

Dean’s mouth falls open.

“Because I didn’t want them to punish you! Even when I told them I did it — Cas, I was terrified they’d still go after you!”

“Exactly,” Cas counters, struggling against the hopelessness creeping in. “You’re terrified of them. You’ll do as they say.”

“Not when it comes to something that _matters._ ”

“And if they send me away?” he asks, unable to stop himself, and Dean stills. “You said you wanted me, more than — more than anything. What if they simply get rid of me ?”

Dean’s throat bobs, expression caught.

“I . . . then I’ll figure something out. I won’t let them. ”

“And if there’s nothing you can do?”

“I _will_ ,” Dean insists, frustrated. “Look, Cas, all I can give you is my word, but for what it’s worth — I will. I don’t care what they hold over me. I will find a way to refuse.”

Cas studies him for a moment, something sharp and bitter rising in his chest.

“No,” he finally says. “You don’t even know if they’ll let me stay in the first place. You said it yourself, Dean. You can’t make me any promises, and — if they want you to marry the princess, you will.”

“Cas—"

“You _will,_ ” Cas interrupts, rubbing his eyes. It’s impossible to fight the disappointment welling up inside him, nor is he quite able to suppress the anger that comes with it. “You — you’re no different than you were. You tell me you’ll let me go, but all you do is hide and obfuscate and delay and make _plans_ that might not have even worked. And when they address the matter again, and they want you to wed — you’ll do the same, and if no other way out presents itself — you’ll just do as you’re told.”

It’s not fair, and Cas knows it, but he can’t help himself. Everything he felt like he was given, that he’s spent the day reeling from the joy of —

It feels like it’s being taken away, again.

And if Dean did not have the power to offer it, however tentative an offer it might have been, then —

Then he _shouldn’t_ have.

Dean just stares at him for a moment.

“That’s not true,” he finally says. “ _Yes_ , I want — I want to do this so I’m not fighting anybody and nobody’s treating you like a problem, okay? That’s just common sense, Cas. And if my plans hadn’t worked — I told you. I would have gone to the Gardens with you before I did what they said.”

“And if they tell you to marry? Will you go to the Gardens with me then?”

Dean hesitates.

“Things are different,” he says after a moment. “You — your choices aren’t just isolation or isolation with _me,_ Cas. I have to make a different call.”

Cas grits his teeth, shoving off the blanket and shifting toward the edge of the bed.

“Go. Talk to your council. Let them cow you.” Cas glances over his shoulder as he swings his legs over the edge. “Visit as you’re able.”

Dean huffs and lunges forward to grab his shoulder.

“Cas, what the hell?” He tugs him back to face him, green eyes fierce. “If I say I won’t marry a goddamn princess, I _won’t.”_

Cas turns fully, shaking the hand away.

“How can I know that?” he nearly shouts . “Everything — _everything_ I have ever hoped for, everything I have ever expected — I didn’t get it. I — I ended up worse off, one way or another, eventually. Why should I think this will be any different?”

“Because I am _telling_ you.” Dean grasps his other shoulder, jaw set. “And I _would_ have let you go. If I — if I hid and obfuscated and whatever the hell else, if I took my time, it’s because I didn’t want to lose _you,_ not just because I was afraid of what the council would do. But I had a plan, and I was going to see it through, and if it didn’t work, I would have made sure you didn’t suffer alone. Because I made you a promise — I made you a lot of promises — and I would have kept them. And I _swear,_ I will keep this one, too.”

Cas just shakes his head. He hates it. He hates it, absolutely hates it, and try as he might to just be _grateful,_ the way he’s supposed to, he’s so, _so_ tired of not getting what he wants.

“Then I wish they’d just sent me to the Gardens,” he mutters, and Dean stills. “I would have been happy.”

After a moment, Dean shakes his head.

“Cas. I said that, but — I wasn’t thinking. You can’t — you can’t live in isolation.”

“I’d be with you.”

“I’m not enough,” Dean insists, and even he looks hurt. “I — I wish I could be, but I’m not, and even if I were, that’s not the life you deserve. If I thought that would be fair to you, trust me, we’d have a lot more options, but that — locking you away, with nothing else but me — that’s not right. And as hard as it will be, if the only way we get to be together is if I marry the princess — we can make that work, if you still want it. But you getting stuck with me, at the Gardens or a cabin in the woods or wherever, without anyone or anything else — that won’t work. It just won’t.”

“It could,” Cas tries, and he thinks that true, but as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, he understands what Dean is saying.

He was starting to be happy, before he left Lawrence, his only fear what the future would bring, or rather, take away.

But he had Sam and Charlie, there, and he’s startled to realize he’s a little bit happy here in Sioux Falls, too, and if he thinks of giving _all_ of it up —

He can’t say, with confidence, that that _would_ be better.

“It couldn’t, Cas,” Dean says softly, and Cas looks down, bitter.

“Why do I have to choose? Why — why can’t I just have? Just this once?”

Dean just looks at him, eyes sad.

“Trust me. I — I’m wishing I could just give you what you want, just this once. But I can’t. We can’t. And I am going to try, as hard as I can, but — it’s like you said, Cas. Sometimes you just have to take what you can get.” He hesitates. “I hate it, too. But if I know you’ll be there, that I’ll be with you — that’s huge to me. That’ s the only way I think I could handle it.”

Cas looks back, tired.

He’d said that, yes, but he hadn’t been thinking of Dean getting married when he did so.

Clearly, he hadn’t been thinking _at all_.

“So . . . so we just accept it. Whatever they say.”

“No, we fight it. As hard as we can.” Dean hesitates, then catches his hand, squeezing. “I know — marrying Bela’s kind of a worst-case scenario, but I wasn’t kidding. Honest-to-God, I think I can find a way out.”

“How? You keep saying you — that you’ll ‘figure things out’ or ‘fix’ them, and I keep trusting you, but — I never know what that means.”

Dean blows out a breath, brow creasing.

“Right. That — that’s fair. But in this case — you have to remember, a lot of them don’t want a princess, for the same reason they wanted to banish you to the Gardens. They don’t want my heirs to have a mother.”

And Dean — Cas can tell he means it to be reassuring, but it just makes it clear that Cas staying, that them being together, still means it will be someone else.

Dean doesn’t want Cas to be the one he shares that with. He never has.

And even though it shouldn’t matter —

Cas feels, more than ever, like he’s losing something.

“And if they tell you I can’t stay unless you marry her?” he mumbles. “Then what will you do? And don’t — don’t tell me you’ll figure it out. Tell me what you’ll _do.”_

Dean swallows, looking lost.

“Then — then it’ll be your decision, Cas. If you want to try running away with me, or if you want to just — pretend she doesn’t exist, you — it’ll be up to you.”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“You mean — if I’m going to watch you marry.”

Dean gives him a helpless look.

“It doesn’t — it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Trust me, Cas, if they can even talk her into it, she’s not gonna want anywhere near me. As long as the council lets you stay, it — it can be like we talked about this morning. Just you and me.”

Cas just stares at him.

“And your heirs?”

Dean winces.

“That — that’s something we have to discuss—"

“Dean, I don’t — I don’t want to share you. However infrequently.”

And more than that, more than Dean bedding someone else, Cas doesn’t want Dean to share his children with another. Perhaps all those months of expecting to bear them himself ultimately went to Cas’s head, but as stupid as it is, when he thinks of Dean having children with Princess Isabela or a noblewoman or _anyone_ who isn’t Cas, when Cas won’t have any at all, will simply have to stand aside when Dean must tend to them, to their mother, even-

He feels sick.

“Right — right, but — I’m just — I’m just saying—"

“You’re saying there’s nothing you can do. And nothing I can do.” Cas takes a deep breath. “Which I’m accustomed to, so — very well. We’ll have to see.”

He was never supposed to have any of this, anyway. He _told_ Samandriel, he didn’t expect anything, and he didn’t need anything, and that was true. It _was._

If this is what it costs, to have more of Dean —

Then he’s still ahead.

“Cas . . .”

Cas quickly leans forward, kissing him.

“Quiet. It — it doesn’t matter. Like you said. I — I just want to be together. You’ve never given me any reason to expect more than that. So talk to them, and then come back, and whatever happens in the future — we’ll endure it.”

Dean pulls away, giving him a troubled look.

“I’ll do everything I can. I swear. I’d give up everything for you, Cas — I would. I’d leave all of it behind, and I still will, if you decide you want that, but — I want you to be as happy as you can be, and I don’t think you giving everything else up will make you happy.”

“It could,” Cas mumbles, and Dean sighs.

“Sweetheart — you spent enough time alone, with nowhere to fit. I don’t want to put you back in an attic, or even a gilded cage with a garden, whether you have me or not.”

Cas shakes his head, reaching out and wrapping his arms around Dean , tugging him close as tears prick at his eyes.

“Then try. Please try.”

Dean slips his arms around Cas in turn, squeezing him tight.

“I will. Don’t — don’t worry, Cas. I know that — none of it sounds good, but I mean it. I don’t expect it to come to that. Not even close. I want — I want to go home and say whatever I have to say and come back and get you, and then — I just want to be together, too. Hell, I’ll talk to Bela and tell her to threaten to poison her brother if he tries to get her to marry me. I just want _you_ , Cas. That’s all.”

Of course, Cas doesn’t say anything, to that.

He doesn’t think he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> Sexual Content: Cas points out that he was wrapped around Dean in ‘many ways’ besides his arms, noting his hope that Dean enjoyed it, and it soon becomes apparent that Dean is aroused again, which arouses Cas, especially as Dean begins touching him in somewhat teasing ways. Dean initially insists on saying ‘good night’ and that they may have sex again in the morning, and Cas tells Dean he is incredibly upsetting. Dean tells him not to worry, cheekily assuring him he won’t do these things to the council. Cas complains of disturbing thoughts of George, after which Dean says that despite thinking about George naked, he still wants good-night orgasms, and Cas tells him not to think about George and to touch him instead. Dean ends up jerking him off while rubbing up against him.
> 
> In the scene immediately following, Dean has been woken up very early by Cas for morning orgasms. Cas rides him, and Dean expresses some concern for Cas’s later comfort, it being a work day. Cas insists that the soreness he’s experiencing feels good, but asks Dean if he might want to accompany Cas to work, stating that, “I don’t think I’ll like being apart from you.” He then asks Dean to provide more information about his plans to address the council, and about how things will be this time, with Cas staying there. Dean is initially struggling with the idea of holding a conversation at this time, but as he tries to explain, it becomes apparent that hearing about Dean’s plans for Cas staying with him are helping Cas get off. Dean expresses his desire to share a room with Cas, and to kiss him in the mornings, and to train him with his soldiers, asking if he should tell the council about those plans. He then deviates to more sexual things, speaking graphically about what he’d like to do with Cas after said training, and though Cas is clearly aroused, he suggests that might not be appropriate to share. Dean presses on, asking if Cas really doesn’t want him to tell the council about specific ways Cas is in bed, and Cas, very turned on, calls him vulgar. Dean follows up with: 
> 
> “So . . . you don’t want me to tell them all of that? You don’t want me to tell them that I would — I’d really, really like it if you stayed, because I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone or anything in my life, and I don’t wanna spend a single goddamn day without you if I don’t have to? I should keep that to myself?"
> 
> which shocks Cas. Dean clarifies that he can’t make any promises, but Cas just tells him that riding him felt good, and he’d like to be on top of Dean another time, but that for now, he’d like to be on his back again and have Dean do one of the things he just said. Dean complies.


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: implied/referenced racism/xenophobia (details in notes), implied/referenced past miscarriage and infertility (details in the notes), implied/referenced sexual harassment (details in the notes), implied/referenced attempted trafficking (details in the notes), Anna/Bela, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> **Chapters 35 and 36 posted at the same time.**

Parting is bittersweet, the glee of the morning long forgotten, muted by the unforgiving reality ahead of him.

“Don’t worry,” Dean tells him again, holding him tight in the foyer. “I’ll fig—"

“Figure something out,” Cas finishes, feeling strangely hollow. “You should certainly try.”

Dean pulls away, face falling.

“Cas.”

Cas just lifts a brow, and Dean sighs, squeezing his shoulders.

“Look, I — I told you, I need to bring back options. You deserve choices, Cas, and while it might not ultimately be up to _me_ what they are — I’m gonna go and I’m gonna fight for as many as I can.” He takes a deep breath. “The stuff about marriage, or my heirs, all of that — I thought we’d talk about it once I had a better idea of what all those choices were. And we’ll talk about it again, once I know, and — and hopefully, we’ll work something out.”

“Regardless of what they are, we’ll work something out,” Cas says tiredly. “Obviously. It’s not going to be what I want, and that’s fine, Dean. It rarely is.”

Dean hesitates, green eyes searching.

“What you want?”

Cas tries not to roll his eyes.

“I’m tired of talking. We should kiss, before you go.” He sighs. “After all, there’s still the chance they’ll forbid you from seeing me at all.”

He leans in again, trying to hold on to his irritation, his frustration with Dean, fair or not, but it’s difficult.

His anger is the least of his feelings, right now, and the others—

The others are much more difficult to bear.

Dean turns away, gripping his shoulders and gently holding him back, because apparently, Cas is to be denied kisses, as well.

Of course, he should get _used_ to that, shouldn’t he? Supposing the council even allows him to reside in Lawrence, he’ll likely spend plenty of nights alone in his bedchamber while Dean provides obligatory kisses to someone else.

Never mind what _else_ he’ll be doing with them, Cas thinks sourly.

(He still feels sick.)

“Okay, first of all, that’s unlikely. Princes and kings have had mistresses coming out their ears, in the past, and as far as I know, they don’t have a problem with things like that, not as long as I do everything they tell me to.”

Cas nods.

“Like marrying the princess.”

Dean huffs.

“Cas.”

“Your confidence seems misplaced, Dean,” Cas points out. “You yourself admit you have no power.”

“ _Cas._ ”

“Anyway, while I may have briefly forgotten your obligations — I understand them. I’m not stupid. Whatever happens, I will endure it.” He takes a deep breath. “Now kiss me.”

“No.” Dean lets go of him, stepping back. “Tell me what you want.”

“What?”

“You said you wanted to be with me,” Dean says bluntly. “And you wouldn’t even admit that, when I asked the first time. You say I’m too used to getting what _I_ want, but you know what, Cas? You’re the one who’s too used to _not_ getting what you want. It means you won’t just — you won’t _ask!_ ”

“Because it’s pointless!” Cas snaps. “You told me. You told me how these things work, Dean. They — they only happen if we both want it. And more than anything, what I get — it depends on what _you_ want, what you’re willing to give me. My feelings don’t matter.”

Dean clenches his fists, scowling.

“Are you _serious_? You think your feelings don’t matter? Because trust me, Cas — your feelings are _all_ that matter. They’re all I’ve fucking thought about for _months,_ and they’re all I’m _going_ to be thinking about until you either get what you want or you decide you don’t want me, period.” He takes a deep breath, giving Cas a hard look. “So for God’s sake — _tell_ _me what you actually want!_ ”

Cas growls, surging forward and grabbing Dean’s collar, shoving him back, watching with distant satisfaction as Dean stumbles into the door with a soft _thud_ , because Cas might be powerless in all the ways that count, but _physically —_ physically, he can move even _Dean_.

“I want everything I can have,” he hisses, pressing in close, Dean’s breath puffing hot against his face. “And everything I can’t _._ But what matters is what _you_ want, what someone else says _you_ can have, and believe me, Dean — there is _no_ point in asking.”

Dean swallows, eyes bouncing between Cas’s.

“Yes, there is,” he says after a moment, voice strained. “There is, Cas. Whether I can give it to you or not, I — I want to know.”

Cas tightens his grip, staring hard.

“No, you don’t,” he says grimly. “Because you don’t want it. And you’re not going to ask your council if I can have it.”

“Yeah?” Dean asks, hand moving to cover Cas’s, squeezing tight. “Try me.”

Cas looks at him for a long, long moment, breathing hard, sad and angry and _bitter,_ because Dean clearly has no _idea_ , the depths of Cas’s wanting.

If he did, he would have just kissed him and left, well before the conversation could have reached this point.

“No,” Cas finally says, releasing him. “Just — try to get them to let me stay. That’s all I ask of you.”

Against the door, Dean’s shoulders sag.

“It shouldn’t be,” he says quietly. “I never figured you for a coward, Cas. If you want something — ask. The worst that can happen is that you get told no.”

_His highness_ _might be a coward, but you’re not._

Cas shakes his head.

“If you think that, then you’re a fool,” he says simply. “Curfew was at nine. If you’re not going to kiss me goodbye, then leave.”

Dean is silent for a moment.

Then his eyes narrow.

“I never know,” he says. “I have — _no_ idea what you understand, or what you don’t. I have no idea what you mean, when you say you want everything. But you know what, Cas? I’m gonna go, and I’m gonna ask for it. I’m gonna ask for everything. And if they let us have it — then at some point, I hope you’re ready, Cas.”

Cas glares back.

“Ready for what?”

“Ready to ask,” Dean says, and then he steps forward, holding Cas’s gaze. “I mean it. It’s okay to want things. And no, people don’t always get them, but — you have to ask. Otherwise? I’ve got no way of knowing.”

Cas closes his eyes.

“You don’t need to know. You just need to tell me how it’s going to be.”

“That’s not how it works, sweetheart. You said it yourself. You and me — it’s a two-way street. We’ve both gotta want it.”

“You don’t,” Cas whispers. “I know you don’t.”

Dean is silent, the worst sort of confirmation, and Cas nods.

“Just—" he starts, but then Dean tugs him forward, mouth fitting against his own, smothering the words.

“You don’t know a goddamn thing,” he mumbles. “Because I’m afraid, if I tell you, you’ll let me have it. And I need _you_ to be the one to decide, Cas. You have to be. So don’t go thinking I don’t want all the same things you do. Please,” he adds. “If you want it — I need you to ask. That’s the only way we both get to have it.”

Cas swallows, confused.

“I don’t understand.”

Dean just slips his arm around him, lips brushing his forehead this time.

“I know. Just — don’t worry about what I want, or what the council says. Think about what _you_ want. I’ll go, and I’ll try to make sure that whatever it is, you can have it, and when I come back — ask me. Please. Just ask me.”

“I can’t,” Cas mumbles, shutting his eyes a little tighter. “I can’t, Dean.”

“You can’t ask? Or you can’t have it?”

“I _can’t,_ ” Cas insists. “I can’t — I _can’t_.”

“You can,” Dean protests, kissing him again. “Ask. I’ll do everything in my power to give it to you. I swear, Cas.”

And because Cas has had enough of thinking, enough of promises — has had enough of _wanting,_ period—

He wraps his arms around Dean and kisses him, and when he finally walks Dean out to the carriage and helps him inside—

He asks for nothing.

Cas is on his second pot of tea, aimlessly pushing puzzle pieces across the table, not even trying to make them fit, when he hears the front door slam.

He looks up, reluctantly curious, and no more than a minute passes before Susan appears in the doorway, relief flooding her face when she sees the room occupied.

“Oh, good,” she mutters, and then hastens to the table, scarf still tied around her neck, though she must have shed her coat, and plops into Max’s usual chair. “I thought I was going to have worry on my own.”

Cas tilts his head, questioning, and she sighs, uncoiling her scarf.

“It’s a long story.” She sniffs. “You smell like you’re _already_ worried, though. What are you doing nursing a teapot at this hour, anyhow? Shouldn’t you be sleeping off the afterglow?”

“Afterglow?” he echoes, and she waves a hand.

“The prince.” She lifts her brows. “The fun things you did with the prince.”

Cas slumps.

“We did very fun things,” he mumbles. “And he’s going to ask if I can stay with him.”

Susan straightens.

“He _is_?”

“Yes. But he’s going to marry Princess Isabela.”

Susan’s dawning glee meets a stark reversal.

“He’s _what_?”

Cas looks back down at the table, sour.

“He said he wouldn’t, but — if king and council will it, it’s what will happen.”

Hadn’t Dean told Samandriel that, once? That he had to listen to the king more than anyone?

As far as Cas can tell — nothing has changed, since then, and regardless of what Dean might say . . .

Why should he expect _Dean’s_ behavior to?

Susan grimaces.

“Well, _fine,_ but — there’ve got to be ways around it! And what about that gruff, beardy king of ours? _He_ did it; is he really going to sit there and tell his son he can’t?”

Cas sighs, moodily pushing a puzzle piece in a circle.

“I’m not a noblewoman, Susan. I — I’m not even eligible to bear his children.”

“In what way are you not _eligible_?” she sputters. “They kidnapped you away to do just that; if you were good enough then, you should be good enough now!”

Cas shrugs.

“I’m not. Or at least, Dean doesn’t want me to.”

She looks appalled.

“What, he wants to steal you away from us to your tower in Lawrence, but he thinks he’s too good to mate you? Does he think you’re his _mistress_ or something?”

Cas hesitates.

“Possibly? He said princes and kings were allowed to have as many as they wanted, and that’s why the council would probably let me stay.”

“What a crock of it!” she exclaims, disgusted. “You know, maybe we were wrong about him. All the feelings in the world are as useless as a bag without a bottom if they belong to a _coward._ ”

_His highness might be a coward, but you’re not!_

Cas hunches.

“Just — just because someone has feelings doesn’t mean it does any good to act on them. Dean said he wanted to be with me. I trust that. I’m upset, too, but — it’s not necessarily his fault if he can do nothing more than offer me a place in Lawrence.”

“If you really want something, you fight for it,” Susan scoffs. “Tooth and nail. Ring and crown, even. He’s definitely a coward, Castiel.”

Cas grimaces, anxiousness beginning to drown out the sadness and frustration.

“It’s not important,” he mutters, then clears his throat. “We’ve become sidetracked. What are you worried about, Susan?” He frowns. “Actually — where were you?”

Susan’s outrage falters, eyes widening slightly.

Then she coughs, clasping her hands together in her lap.

“Oh. Just — I had a meeting.”

“Alright.” Cas waits, but Susan says nothing, pursing her lips at the table. “And . . . the meeting worried you?”

Her nose scrunches, shoulders drawing up.

“Yes. No. Not the _meeting,_ but — it — god, I don’t even know.” She takes a deep breath. “It’s all ridiculous. Maybe we should all be spinsters at Mills Park together, do you think?”

Cas tilts his head, puzzled.

“Perhaps. I’ll be a spinster either way, and there’s always the chance they won’t let me go to Lawrence,” he acknowledges, though he’s trying to cling to the idea that they will. Dean had seemed fairly confident of that, at least. “Although — can you be a spinster, if you’re widowed?”

Susan waves a hand.

“Semantics, but alright. We’ll all run off to a convent together, then.”

“I don’t want to go to a convent.”

She hesitates, then sighs, arms crossing.

“Neither do I,” she admits. “Just — sometimes it seems better not to bother about the other things, even if you want them.”

Cas gives her a sharp look.

“I thought you said you should fight for things you want.”

Susan just rolls her eyes.

“Well, _yes,_ Castiel, but sometimes our wants conflict, and I can’t fight for peace and simplicity _and_ a — a — whatever it would be, at the same time.”

Cas nods slowly.

“I see.” He pauses. “I don’t, actually. What are you talking about?”

She’s silent, and then she uncrosses her arms, burying her face in her hands.

“I met with my barkeep tonight,” she mutters against them.

“Oh.” He blinks. “Did you not have fun?”

“No. Yes. Sort of. It — yes, I think, but also, not the kind I thought? And now I’m confused.”

Cas, too, is very confused, but then, he supposes he often is.

“Confused about what?” he tries, hoping that will lead to a clearer answer, and she drops her hands with a huff.

“I just — I thought — I thought I was going for a tumble. Right? Just some fun, like I never got to have before.”

Cas hesitates.

“A tumble?”

Her lips twitch.

“I thought he was inviting me to have sex, Castiel. And then I’d wander home, giddy and disheveled, with a nice memory for my efforts.”

“Oh.” Cas thinks about all the kinds of sex he and Dean have had, and for the life of him, he can’t see where there was any ‘tumbling’ involved, though he supposes that’s not the point. “You weren’t happy with it? Did you tell him to stop?”

Susan quickly shakes her head.

“No, no, it — it wasn’t like that. Not at all.” She frowns. “That’s the problem. He just — he bought me dinner at the tavern, and then he wanted to go up on the roof to watch the stars, and I was sure it was time — although it’s a bit cold out to be doing things on rooftops, but you know, you’re only young once — and anyway . . . we got up there, and he laid out a blanket and — and we watched the _stars._ ”

Cas perks up.

“That sounds wonderful, Susan. I like watching the stars.” Though to be fair, Cas also likes tumbles or tumbling or whatever she wants to call it, and he’s sorry for her if she didn’t have the orgasm she was anticipating.

“Yes,” she says quickly, giving him an intent stare. “It’s nice, isn’t it? My husband thought it was boring, to just sit and look at things, but some of my nicest thoughts happen when I’m sitting around doing nothing. My best conversations, too.”

“Dean and I frequently looked out over the city, when we’d picnic during our rides,” Cas offers, a little wistful for those days. “I couldn’t tell you what we talked about, most of the time, but — it was a pleasure.”

She nods vigorously.

“It is. It _is._ And that — that’s the weirdest part, Castiel! Because last time, when I was drunk, I told him about all the books I liked to read, and he’d said he read them, too — which is odd, isn’t it? They’re for _girls,_ even if they’re actually very good — and anyway, we talked about them. For _two hours._ ”

Cas lifts his shoulders, lost, because he was under the impression Susan very much enjoyed talking about books she liked.

“That also sounds nice?”

“It was,” she agrees, listless. “It was really nice. So of course, I started to think I’d misunderstood — he _did_ know all those things about being intimate with men, and he reads books for _women,_ so perhaps I was an idiot to think he’d take me up to the rooftop for a romp, but — then he said it was late and he — he _kissed_ me and then—"

She cuts off, a peculiar sort of agony in her face.

“And then what?” Cas asks, curious, and she takes a deep breath.

“And then he saw me home. Isn’t that — isn’t that _weird_?”

Cas blinks.

“Is it?”

“Yes!” she insists, running a hand through her hair. “It was like — well, it was like being _courted,_ if the person courting you had an imagination and you actually liked having conversations together!”

“Oh.” Cas has no idea what to say to that, especially given how disturbed she seems to be. “And that’s . . . bad?”

Susan shrugs, fidgeting with one of the pins holding her precarious bun in place.

“No. Yes. It — well, it’s _odd._ I’m a widow. And I’m not — you know, I’m not the way men like women to be.” She looks down with a grimace, waving a hand, though Cas doesn’t see anything amiss. “I’m all . . . flat all over. And ‘sturdy.’ My brother always said I hit harder than any man he’d ever met, and that was when I was still a girl.” She smirks. “Though he hadn’t met _you._ ”

“I can hit rather hard,” Cas agrees mildly, and Susan laughs. “Anyway, I think it’s nice, if you’re going to hit someone, for it to be effective.”

“Maybe,” she agrees, sobering. “But even if they’re not bad things, they’re not — people don’t think they’re good things. Not for girls, anyway. _You’ve_ got those glorious arms, never mind the rest of you, and no one has to wonder why the prince is so taken with you. But I’m just — my mother-in-law said I was like a washboard that talked too much.”

Cas frowns.

“You’re lovely, Susan. And I enjoy talking to you.”

She smiles slightly, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Well, thank you. I definitely enjoy talking. Still, though. It’s not just — it’s not just those things,” she adds quietly, looking down. “That’s one of the reasons I accepted my husband’s courtship. I’d sort of — I was afraid no one else was going to want me.”

Cas furrows his brows.

“Why would you think that?”

She shrugs, expression pained.

“The thing is — when my father married my mother and brought her to Winchester, it caused a bit of a stir. I hear in the capital, there’s a lot of people from where she is, but — you know, we were a little bit North, and — we were the only ones.” She shrugs again. “My brother, at least — you couldn’t tell as much. And he went to school in Lawrence, anyway, and decided to stay there, and as far as I know, it doesn’t really matter for him. But — it did for me.” She huffs. “With me, you can’t miss it. And — well, the men in my town wanted brides that looked like they were from _Winchester._ ”

“But you _are_ from Winchester—"

“It doesn’t matter. Trust me, it doesn’t.” She tugs at one of the many strands of hair escaping from her bun, mouth bitter. “It’s all about — appearances, isn’t it? People see _what_ you are, not who you are. And what I am is — not up to snuff.”

And that—

What can Cas really say to that? He knows, as well as anyone, how true those things are.

“You are, though,” he finally says, because that, at least, is also true. “Very much. I — I’m still never going to mate or marry, but — I didn’t think I’d ever be cared for at all, Susan. Not by anyone besides Anna. I was hoping to just . . . survive. And if I could do that, the only other thing I’d hoped for was to stay with my sister. But I didn’t deserve any more than that, and I didn’t expect it.”

Susan scowls, foot sliding beneath the table, nudging his.

“That _town_ is the wretched abomination, Castiel. You’re perfect.”

Cas smiles, nudging back.

“Dean’s said that.” His smile fades slightly. “Honestly, I hate that he might marry the princess. I don’t even want him to have a noblewoman bear his heirs. But — he cares for me. In a way that’s hard to doubt. And — that could change, and I’m afraid it will, but for now — I don’t need mating or marriage, the way he cares for me is so wonderful, Susan.”

“If it were that wonderful, he’d do both,” she retorts, and he shakes his head.

“I think, if someone can care for me that way — someone like Dean, even — then it should be very easy for someone to care for you. Because you’re also perfect.” He hesitates. “We might spend a long time in places where people tell us we’re nothing, but — it’s clear to me, after meeting Dean, after meeting all of you — that that doesn’t mean they’re right.”

Susan is quiet a moment.

And then she sighs.

“His highness is an absolute idiot if he doesn’t bite you,” she says, reaching over to pat his thigh. “My barkeep said he’d call on me tomorrow. I was going to have Max tell him I was stuck in the lavatory with stomach problems, but — maybe I won’t.”

Cas smiles.

“I don’t think you should.”

“Right?” She grimaces. “If it all goes tits up, I’m not really any worse off than I started, am I?”

He pauses, considering that.

And then he nods.

“No,” he agrees. “That’s a good way to look at it.”

“It’s all a matter of perspective, as they say,” she points out. “Although, to be honest, I think they’re mostly full of—"

“Has anyone seen Katherine?” Lucy asks, appearing at the entrance to the parlor and peering around, squinting at the shadows beneath the furniture. “It’s time to feed her, but she’s crawled out of her bed and gone somewhere.”

Susan blinks, and then she laughs.

“I can’t say I have. But here — why don’t Castiel and I help you look?”

Katherine is found trying to crawl up one of the coats on the rack — Cas is fairly certain he identifies it as Anna’s, and given Lucy’s horrified look, he suspects she’s reached the same conclusion — and once the coat has been examined and determined not noticeably worse for wear, he cleans up his tea tray and heads to bed.

It’s difficult to sleep. Talking to Susan helped, in some ways — perspective _is_ important, and he thinks he’s begun to lose his, if he managed to take for granted how much Dean _does_ care for him, whether he marries Princess Isabela or not — but his initial anger and disappointment is beginning to wear off, and mostly, he just . . .

He feels sad.

He shouldn’t; he was so happy, when Dean suggested they could be together, when Dean spoke of how it might be, if Cas stayed in Lawrence all the time. And he _should_ be happy, should be _ecstatic,_ because even without all of that, it’s been a wonderful visit. They’re lovers, and he’s special to Dean, is Dean’s _favorite,_ and the bedding was nothing like what he expected, was as pleasurable and addictive as anything else they’ve done, and if the council agrees to it, Cas could have all those things, almost every single day.

He hadn’t lied, when he told Susan he didn’t need mating or marriage. He doesn’t. He never expected to have those things, with anyone, and he certainly never expected to have them with Dean. _Everything_ he’s being given — it’s so much more than he thinks anyone could have hoped for, least of all him.

He doesn’t understand why it doesn’t feel like enough.

Anyway, he drifts off eventually, and he sleeps later than usual, only making it downstairs when the morning shift has breakfast well under way.

Lucy’s crouched by the doorway, a little food dish on the floor just inside it, and she watches patiently while Katherine tentatively gnaws at the unidentifiable pieces in the bowl.

“Good morning, Castiel,” she greets him when he comes in, hoping to try and maneuver a cup of coffee amidst the chaos, and he pauses at the door, nodding.

“Good morning, Lucy.” After a beat, he crouches, peering at Katherine. “How is she?”

Lucy hums.

“Recovered from the cold very nicely, I think.” She reaches out, gently scratching Katherine behind the ears, and upon closer inspection, Cas thinks he can make out a bit of sardine.

“You did well.”

“Well, I certainly tried,” Lucy sighs, though she looks relieved. “The poor thing did her fair share of fighting, though.”

Cas simply nods, deciding to linger for a moment, watching as the bits of sardine slowly disappear between Katherine’s small, sharp teeth.

“God never made a more perfect creature, did he?” Lucy remarks after a while, and Cas smiles slightly, fairly certain he understands.

“It’s strangely soothing to watch her.”

Lucy quickly nods.

“It is. You know, I doubt I’ll ever be blessed with children — you need a man of some sort for that, sadly, and even if I took leave of my senses and got one, the doctors said it would take a miracle, after I lost the one — but . . . I’m not sure I don’t love her just as much.”

A shadow falls over them, then, and suddenly, a cup of tea gets thrust between their shoulders, Vivian grinning as she looms.

“Black tea for the cat mother. Don’t feed it to your child,” she teases, and Lucy gives her an offended look.

“I’d never. For all I know, it’d be the end of her.” She sniffs, stroking over Katherine’s back, and Cas can hear the cat start to purr. “I was lucky to find her in the first place. Strays don’t stand a chance, you know.”

Vivian hums, patting Lucy’s head before she straightens.

“Well, you’re not wrong. Maybe you ought to go to the Hearings and ask the king to make a Mills Park for cats,” she jokes, but Lucy pauses, considering.

“Maybe I should. Though with Castiel here, you might as well go direct to his highness.” She gives Cas a sidelong look. “He does everything you say, as far as I can tell.”

Cas _wishes._

Even if he hasn’t said all of the things he’s thinking of, he doesn’t deceive himself Dean would be able to do them.

“I could certainly try,” he agrees, non-committal, then frowns. “But — don’t the Hearings happen in the summer?”

“One of them.” Lucy shifts, settling criss-cross with a sigh, her eyes returning to Katherine. “There’s another in a few days, though.”

“Not that Castiel needs to bother,” Vivian giggles. “He can kneel to a different crown for his favors, can’t he?”

There’s choked laughter from the rest of the kitchen, inscrutable to Cas, and Vivian heads back to the counter, still laughing to herself.

Lucy huffs.

“As if he has to go that far!” she calls over her shoulder. “Why, Max has nothing to do with his highness and he still said he’d see about having Cooke’s for Billie. Either he’s a hopelessly soft touch or being in love’s gone right to his head.”

Cas grimaces.

“He’s a soft touch,” he mutters. “And he’s not in love with me.”

“What else do you call that, Castiel?” she chides him, then narrows her eyes. “Well, assuming alphas experience the kinder emotions, as such, but he certainly seems to.”

“Not love,” he insists. “At least not that kind. Dean and I . . . we share a profound bond. That’s all.”

_Cas_ feels that way, anyway, and since Dean said all of those things about him being special, about wanting to be with him, too—

What else could it be?

Lucy looks incredulous.

“Which is a sight better, if not the very same thing. Honestly, maybe poor Alfie had the right idea of it.”

Cas immediately sours.

“Samandriel is a _child_ , and his opinion should be held to the same value.”

“Max is a child, and she knows what she’s about, often enough,” Lucy protests, then looks thoughtful. “Really, Alfie’s a dear, but he’s still an alpha. Of course he’s full of bad opinions.”

“Well, I won’t argue with that,” he sighs, standing. “I think I’ll prepare my coffee, though.”

She tilts her chin up, eyeing him speculatively.

“I’m not sure that was one of them, though.”

Cas pauses, lifting a brow.

“Excuse me?”

She shrugs and turns away again.

“It wasn’t such a terrible thought. Soft touch or lovestruck — his highness isn’t so fearsome, after all. You might as well ask.”

It takes him a moment to understand, and when he does—

He heads for the stove without bothering to respond.

It’s a long day. Cas misses Dean, misses stalling as he picks up his crate, securing for himself the privilege of watching Dean stride up the ramp, misses stealing kisses in the cargo bay, misses the giddiness of working side by side, trading warm glances and scattered conversation as they move back and forth between ship and dock. He wants to listen to Dean talk to the other workers, again, conversations it wouldn’t occur to Cas to have, and he wants to lunch together in the white winter sun, Dean sweat-damp and smiling, lit up in the bright midday.

He can’t, though, so he works by rote, the hours dragging by. He’s exhausted by lunch, mind caught up in an increasing number of worries over what the future actually holds, and by the time Mr. Dryer dismisses him at three, all he wants to do is go home and sleep, just to stop _thinking._

Before Christmas, Dean had said. Cas had urged him to take his time, if he needed it, and even though he knows he was right to do so—

Now that he’s faced with the prospect of waiting, he wishes he knew exactly how long it would be.

(He is so, so very tired of waiting.)

He bathes quickly, narrowly deciding against a nightgown and a nap, and heads downstairs to see if he can contrive some other means of distraction.

No contrivance is required, as it turns out; Cas descends the stairs just as Anna opens the door to Miss Talbot, and witnesses a prolonged moment of tense silence before Miss Talbot clears her throat.

“I believe I mentioned I was leaving Sioux Falls, tomorrow.”

Anna nods, hand firm on the edge of the door.

“You did. You’re due home for the Winter holidays.”

“Yes. Unfortunately.” She hesitates. “I had hoped to visit with the others, before I left. I’ve met many of them in town, however, staying elsewhere makes it difficult.”

Anna’s shoulders tense.

“Right. Of course.” She takes a deep breath, then steps back, gesturing her inside. “Not everyone is back from work, but — you’re certainly welcome to the parlor, while they trickle in.”

Miss Talbot nods, a peculiar distance to it as she steps around her.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, gracefully slipping out of her coat. “I’ll do that. My apologies for disturbing you.”

She simply drapes it over her arm, when she’s through, and begins down the hall without waiting for a response.

Curiously, Anna just watches her go.

“You should shut that,” he points out, once Miss Talbot’s steps have faded entirely, and Anna jumps, swiveling.

“ _Damn it,_ Cas. I swear it gets creepier and creepier, the older you get.” She takes a deep breath, hastily shutting out the cold. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Since she arrived.” He tilts his head. “That seemed awkward. Was it?”

Anna rolls her eyes, shooting an uneasy glance down the hall.

“Of course it was,” she huffs, then shakes her head, stepping toward him. “Fortunately, though, it’s done with. I’m going to read in my room.”

Cas makes no attempt to move out of her way. Anna is clearly distraught, in some way, and even if she weren’t—

Well, the tradition of nosiness between them was entirely of her own making, and at the moment — he’d much rather think about Anna’s problems than his own.

(Not that he really has any.)

“You don’t usually care to spend time in your room.”

“I do right now,” she mutters, then waves a hand. “If you’re coming downstairs, then come downstairs.”

“Miss Talbot upsets you.”

Anna narrows her eyes.

“As I said last time, Cas — we don’t get along.”

“Why don’t you get along, though?” Anna had said she was difficult, extremely so, but — it’s not what Cas has heard from the others, nor is it really what he’s seen firsthand.

At least, she doesn’t seem any more difficult than _Anna_ is.

His sister glances down the hall again, then sighs.

“Fine,” she mumbles, moving forward and pushing at him. “Back up. We’re going to go to my room before you embarrass me.”

“How would I emb—"

She scowls.

“Cas.”

He rolls his eyes, but reluctantly turns, starting up the stairs.

“You’re going to tell me when we get there, aren’t you?”

“ _Yes,_ I’m going to tell you, and then we’re never going to talk about it again, alright?”

Cas just gives a noncommittal shrug and continues on to her room.

“So — I never told you how I ended up at Mills Park,” his sister starts, once they’ve settled side by side at the edge of the bed, and Cas squints.

“Miss Talbot found you.”

Anna hesitates.

“She did. Not for about a month, though.”

“Oh. Where did you go when you first ran away, then?”

Cas had often wondered, while he was in Lawrence, what Anna’s plan had been.

She lifts her shoulders slightly.

“Well, I stole one of Adler’s old workhorses — I was hoping it wouldn’t be worth coming after, at least not until the prince’s arrival had been dealt with — and I went as far as I could.”

“You knew how to ride?”

Anna makes a face.

“Not well. One of the cloth traders who came through regularly met with me for a lesson here and there, but it was difficult to sneak away for that, and I couldn’t actually practice.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Of course not. I don’t want to think of what trouble I’d have gotten into, if I’d been found out, and you would have, too, if you’d known.” She sighs. “It was risky, anyway. They knew who I was and they were sympathetic, but it could have gone badly for me. People are dishonest about their intentions more often than you’d think.”

“But it didn’t?”

“Not at that point.” She smiles slightly. “It was slow going, given my skill level, and I couldn’t use main roads, although it was probably just as well. In hindsight, I’m lucky I ended up in a town before I completely ran out of food.”

“Where did you stay?”

Anna hesitates.

“Well, the first thing I did was look for work. I went back to the woods, the first couple of nights, but I was fortunate. While I was asking after a position in town, I met a woman in urgent need of a housekeeper.”

Cas wrinkles his nose.

“You hate house duties.”

Anna snorts.

“I really do. But it was work, and a place to stay, and I can _do_ them — so I did.”

“Ah. How did Miss Talbot find you, then? Or — how did you find Miss Talbot?”

Anna looks down, folding her hands in her lap.

“You know — I despised Adler. I hated how he spoke to his family, and I especially hated how he spoke to me. I hated how he looked at me. But I was never afraid of him. If something happened to me, it would be because I was in trouble with Father or the council. All Adler could do was try to rat me out.”

“You were very good about getting away with things,” Cas agrees. “Though I did always worry that at some point, you wouldn’t.”

She raises a brow.

“I worried _sometimes,_ but — what’s the worst that could happen, Cas? Getting sent to the capital to bear the prince’s children against my will?”

Cas huffs a laugh, although a part of him can’t suppress a stab of wistfulness, because getting sent to the capital to bear the prince’s children sounds rather nice, now, assuming they let him stay afterward.

“I suppose.”

“Anyway.” She shrugs. “I told you, before. I thought if I could get out of New Eden, that was it. I could find my way from there, and things would be better.”

“But they weren’t.”

She shakes her head.

“They weren’t. In some ways, they were, for a little while — but it doesn’t last. Not for anyone. There’s too much that can go wrong, and people don’t — no one does anything about it.”

Cas frowns.

“What went wrong?”

She smiles wryly.

“There was nothing good about New Eden. Nothing. But they certainly made it difficult to make untoward advances.”

“Untoward advances?” Cas swallows. “Did someone—"

“If you’d been a woman, that boy who attacked you would have probably found himself on the wrong side of a cliff’s edge. At the very least, he would have had _your_ punishment, and he would have been forbidden from mating.” Anna sighs. “It’s not the same, other places. There’s so much more freedom, in so many ways, Cas, and nothing in the world could make me go back home — but it’s still biased. The less power you have, the less free you are. And the housekeeper, new in town and completely on her own? She doesn’t have any.”

“Anna . . .” Cas looks at her, afraid. “What happened?”

“That nice woman who took me in? Her husband wasn’t quite so nice,” she explains bitterly. “And that — that, I managed to avoid. But it didn’t stop him from trying, and when she caught him at it — she threw me out.”

He’s relieved, in some ways, but Anna’s expression is bleaker than it has been, and he says nothing, waiting.

“It — it is really, really hard to be on your own, Cas. To have nothing. And after what she had to say, no one would even think of hiring me for the kind of work I’d usually do. I didn’t — I had no idea how I was going to survive. I’d sold the horse, obviously, but I couldn’t _live_ in the woods, and boarding costs a fortune, and you don’t even feel _safe,_ and — eventually, I decided I had to move on. So I did.”

“And then Miss Talbot found you?”

She nods.

“Sort of. Someone else found me first, though. I — I didn’t know. Now, it seems so obvious, but—" She cuts off, shaking her head, mouth tight. “I started looking for work, of course. And when I was approached, the first evening, and I was told that they knew of an opportunity — I listened.”

“What was it?”

She looks at him.

“You know Wallace, from the docks?”

Cas scowls.

“Yes.”

“Well, not everyone who does that is as up front about it. And not all of them take no for an answer.”

Cas stiffens.

“Did you—"

“No,” she says shortly. “No. They — they took me to a building, and — I was naive, but not that naive. I knew what was probably about to happen to me, and — I don’t know if I felt more terrified or _stupid_. You just — you get so worn down, and desperate, and you don’t think clearly, and you — you make _one_ mistake, Cas, and that’s it.”

“You told me yourself, they’re horrible,” Cas protests. “How can it be _your_ mistake if someone lies? If they take advantage?”

“Maybe not — but it feels like it. All you know is — if you hadn’t made the choice you made, you wouldn’t have ended up there.”

“No,” he insists. “You didn’t know what choice you were making. You — you didn’t have any options, Anna. They did.”

She sighs.

“That’s what she said, too,” she mutters. “Anyway — it’s neither here nor there, because that — that is when Miss Talbot showed up. Or rather — Miss Talbot and her gun.”

“Oh.” He blinks. “What happened?”

Anna raises a brow.

“What do you think happened, Cas? She shot the man holding me and fired at the others while they ran. And then she took me to the _ridiculously_ nice inn where she was staying and — she offered me a future.”

He reaches out, squeezing her hand.

“I’m glad she did.”

Anna squeezes back, though her eyes are still unhappy.

“Me, too, Cas.”

He hesitates.

“But . . . you still don’t get along?”

Anna doesn’t say anything for a moment.

Then she shrugs, leaning into him.

“We don’t. We did, briefly. I was — well, I was grateful, but mostly I was just . . . things had been so hard, and I’d been so scared, and I — it’s embarrassing, in hindsight, but I just — I fell apart. And she was — incredibly kind about it. She is, sometimes,” Anna admits. “Honestly, it makes it harder to get along.”

Cas isn’t really sure what to say to that, given that it makes extremely little sense to him, but fortunately, Anna continues.

“She held me. While I cried. And told me it was going to be okay.” She purses her lips. “Which — she does that for all of them, and it doesn’t mean anything, but — it did to me. It — it was huge to me. Even when I got to know her, when I realized just how _insufferable_ she can be, it — I always remember that.” She takes a deep breath. “We don’t get along, because we’re both difficult people, but — we also don’t get along because of that. Because _every_ time she says or does something and I think how awful she is, that I want nothing to do with her — I remember when she found me. When she shot that man, when she chased the rest of them off. When she — when she held me. And — I can’t help it. I still want her.”

“You want her,” Cas repeats, fascinated by the look in her eye. “In what way?”

Anna doesn’t look at him.

“In all the ways,” she says quietly. “I didn’t just offer to share her bed for a night, Cas. Nor is that all she declined. And that — that is why we don’t get along.”

He studies her, lost. Anna’s been so much angrier, so much more severe, than she had before, and as much as he regrets that change, for her sake more than anyone’s—

He’s never seen her quite this _sad,_ and that — that is infinitely worse.

“I — I was very conflicted, about Dean,” he says suddenly. “I didn’t want him to bed me, and — there were so many things I didn’t understand about him, Anna, and it made me wary of him.”

She squints.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Just — the novels have fairies,” he tries. “And they don’t have orgasms. They’re — absolutely useless as reference for reality.”

She lifts her brows.

“Yes,” she says slowly. “Yes, they are.”

“Feelings are — incredibly nuanced and complicated,” he continues, giving her a meaningful look. “They can take a long time to understand, even when they’re your own. And much like they don’t appear to develop mutually, in every instance — the rate at which they develop varies.”

She blinks.

“Oh, Cas,” she abruptly says, looking vaguely amused, but he shakes his head.

“When did you ask her?” He takes a deep breath. “It might have been too soon. And in the event that it was — you should ask her again.”

She sobers, amusement fading.

“There’s no point. I know what the answer’s going to be.”

“How can you possibly know that?” he argues. “It was months before I realized I loved Dean, and — you admitted yourself that you’re difficult, Anna. Dean is, as well. Perhaps Miss Talbot just — needed more time.”

“I can know that because it’s not just about _time,_ Cas. Or — or feelings even.” Anna hesitates. “Things are a lot more complicated than that. For a lot of reasons.”

“What reasons?” he demands, frowning. “If she wants things from you as well — that’s all that’s necessary.”

Anna looks incredulous.

“What? No, it’s not, Cas.”

“Yes, it is,” Cas insists. “Dean said—"

“Dean’s not giving either one of you what you want,” she interrupts, narrowing her eyes. “Complicated, Cas. It’s a thing.”

Cas looks away.

“Dean doesn’t want the same things I do. And — he’s a prince. Miss Talbot’s circumstances are hardly similar.”

Anna is strangely silent for a moment.

“Anyway,” she mutters. “The point is — there’s a list a mile long of reasons why we can’t be together. And as much as I hated hearing it — I agree with her. And that’s that.”

“What about some of the time? It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, Anna.”

“Which I’d be fine with, but — that won’t work either.”

He scowls.

“Why not?”

“Well, to begin with — we’re both women.”

“So? Dean says it’s normal to want things, if it doesn’t hurt anyone. And Charlie beds women.”

“Which is fine for _dalliances,_ at least in the cities, but — we couldn’t have children together.”

Cas hesitates.

“Do you need them? I — I agree, it would be nice, but — you can be together without them. Isn’t that more important?”

Anna gives him a speculative look.

“It is,” she finally says. “And honestly — I don’t want them. The longer I’m out of New Eden, the more I think — I have no idea how to parent, Cas. What we had wasn’t normal, and even if I can guess at what is — I don’t think I want to.”

“Perhaps that’s true, but—"

“And she’s from Edgewater. I don’t want to be that far from you, and she can’t live in Winchester.”

“They let her travel here. Isn’t she wealthy? They might let her stay—"

“Edgewater won’t,” Anna interrupts. “And even if they would — we can’t, Cas. She said it was wrong.”

“That you’re both women?”

“No. That she’s the one who found me. That brought me here. Which is — it’s ridiculous. I knew her for all of two weeks before she left me on my own here. Hardly — it isn’t like you were with Dean. But she said that isn’t how it’s done. ‘It’s not the honorable thing, darling.’” Anna scowls. “She calls me darling when she’s being a—"

There’s a pause, and Cas looks back at her, curious.

She huffs.

“A bitch. When she’s being a bitch.” She sighs. “I like her a lot, Cas.”

He nods.

“Alright. Then . . . I’m not sure what the problem with that was — it’s a good thing, that she found you and brought you here — but if you like her, you should discuss it again. She may have different ideas about things. Or there may be other options.” He tightens his hold on her hand. “These things change, Anna.”

She gives him a long look.

“Cas,” she finally says. “I’m going to tell you something, something no one is really supposed to know about, and you are not allowed to repeat it. Under any circumstances. Do you understand?”

He squints.

“You could have just said ‘it’s a secret.’”

“I find an excess of clarification works best with you,” she retorts, then takes a deep breath. “Miss Talbot isn’t just a wealthy Edgewater aristocrat. She’s a princess.”

Cas blinks.

“A princess.”

“ _The_ princess, I suppose. Isabela.” Anna glances at her lap, free hand smoothing her skirt. “She prefers to be called Bela, though.”

Which — Dean, too, had called her that, but—

“Miss Talbot is the Princess of Edgewater,” he repeats, and Anna nods, throwing him a sidelong glance.

“The one and only.”

“The Miss Talbot that’s in the parlor?” He swallows, moving to stand. “Is she going to marry Dean? Is that why you can’t be together?”

Anna tugs him back down.

“Cas. I mean it. I never told you this.”

“But—" He hesitates, eyeing the door. “She might — she might know. What’s going to happen. What I should expect, if I get to go with him.”

“She doesn’t,” Anna insists. “Her brother and his advisers have asked to discuss it. They may never even come to any kind of agreement.”

“But they might.” He turns back to Anna, anxious. “What about her? Does she want to marry him?”

“Of course not,” she snaps. “Even if she doesn’t have feelings for me, she has no desire to play politics and bear children by someone who’s already attached.”

“So . . . she’ll say no?”

Anna hesitates.

“It depends,” she mumbles. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s complicated. And even if she says no, or the talks never get that far — it still can’t be me. We met wrong, and no matter how much I think I like her, it — it’s not good enough.”

They sit in silence for several moments, Cas trying to process the presence of his worst nightmare in the parlor downstairs, wanting to take heart in her supposed disinterest but not foolish enough to imagine it really matters any more than Dean’s, and more than ever, he wishes Max was right, for both their sake’s.

That if he and Anna wanted something badly enough — they could somehow find a way to have it.

“Have you ever told her?” he asks quietly. “I know you . . . offered things. But did you tell her how much you like her? How much you still like her, even now?”

“That’s what I’m saying, Cas. It doesn’t matter. And as frustrating as it is — as hard as it is, every time she brings someone new — she’s not wrong. I think one of the reasons I like her _is_ that she saved me. And yes, I think it’s the same reason I’d have if I’d already been here, if I just saw her saving _them_ , but — it _is_ complicated, and I’d worry if I were her, too. So — we can’t. We don’t. And especially with everything else — that’s for the best.”

Cas studies her.

“How is it — wrong, to like someone who saved you?”

There’s an inscrutable look, at that.

“Because,” she says slowly. “There’s too many other factors. It’s too hard to know if you’d like them the same way, if it hadn’t been for that. Saving someone, like that, changing their fate — it leaves a mark. And it confuses things. It makes it hard to know what’s real.”

“But you just said you’d like her anyway,” Cas protests. “You don’t like her for being the one to save you, you like that she’s someone who would try. Who does. That’s liking who she is, Anna. That doesn’t seem confusing at all to me.”

“It wouldn’t, would it?” she mutters, then sighs. “Anyway. It is what it is, and what it is is — awkward. And uncomfortable.” She swallows. “And disappointing. And even though I understand, it’s hard not to — it feels like I didn’t get a choice, even if that’s not really it, and it means I’m petty, sometimes, and I don’t even really know how _she_ feels, but she certainly seems to enjoy provoking the worst in me, so — we don’t get along. And that is that.”

Cas frowns at her for a moment.

“I don’t think it is,” he finally concludes. “You know — I’ve experienced a lot, Anna. I’ve wanted to die. I’ve wanted to be violent. I’ve _been_ violent. I’ve questioned whether I was sane, and if I wasn’t, when I stopped being so. I’ve had so many of my choices taken away, and honestly, at this point — I don’t think any of it matters.”

She looks wary.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean — I can pinpoint when I’ve been happiest, and when I’ve been unhappiest, and after all of it — I’m not sure I care about right and wrong, or sane and insane, or even real and unreal, Anna. I think I just want as much happiness as I can have.”

“That is . . . kind of disturbing, Cas.”

He shrugs.

“You should ask her, Anna.”

“You just don’t want her to marry Dean,” Anna huffs, and Cas sighs.

“Whether she does or doesn’t — there will be a noblewoman, or another princess may even materialize. I have no expectations, Anna, much as I might wish to.” He looks at her, serious. “It would, however, give me some happiness to see _you_ made happy — even if it’s by someone with whom you don’t get along.”

Anna smiles slightly, but her eyes are sad.

“I already know the answer, Cas. Trust me. There’s no point in asking again.”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” he counters dryly. “They send you to the capital to bear the prince’s children against your will?”

“What?”

“I don’t think you already know the answer,” he continues. “If you did, you wouldn’t be afraid of asking.”

She blinks, then narrows her eyes.

“I’m not afraid.”

“Then ask.”

“There’s a difference between being afraid and not wanting to make a fool of yourself, Cas.”

“Then you must not like her very much, if that’s a consideration.”

Cas’s resents his own foolishness, but only because it continually leads to his disappointment. If he really thought being openly foolish could possibly _get_ him something, could forestall that disappointment, instead—

Well, Cas had an entire city laugh at him as Dean drove him through it.

Looking like a fool is nothing.

Anna gives him a hard stare, but he simply looks back, even.

“She’s a princess, not an heir. And you said she had an independent fortune. She has a _choice_ , Anna. And you — you’re lucky, because you can still have a hand in which one she makes.”

Cas would give anything, if he could say the same, but alas; it’s not even _Dean’s_ choice, at this point.

What could _Cas_ possibly do?

For a moment, his sister is silent.

And then abruptly, she stands, giving him a strange look.

“You know what, Cas? I don’t think I’ve been fair to you.”

He squints.

“In what way?” he asks, although — really, he can think of a few possibilities.

She studies him for another moment, and then she nods.

“I’m waiting for you to get your heart broken. For him to let you down.” She takes a breath. “Maybe I should be encouraging you not to let him.”

“I won’t, and he’s not going to,” Cas protests, frowning, and she reaches out, ruffling his hair.

“Tell Dean what you want, next time. And I mean everything,” she adds. “Even if you think you can’t have it — tell him anyway.”

And without waiting for an answer, she heads to the door.

Cas quickly scrambles to his feet and follows, baffled.

(Unlike Anna, Cas already knows where he stands, and he knows that Dean is potentially in the capital as they speak, working to give him what he’s able. Cas isn’t going to shame those efforts by asking for more.)

(Because unlike _Anna’s_ situation, there genuinely isn’t any point.)

She heads straight for the parlor, once they’re downstairs again. Mrs. Hampton is fussing over how good Max’s drawings are, Max beet red and clutching the edges of her chair in what seems to be a mortified sort of delight as she watches the older woman peer at the sketchbook, and Miss Talbot is looking on with amusement from the settee as she converses with Billie, Katherine curled up between them.

Anna clears her throat, and though Mrs. Hampton continues clucking happily as she looks over the pages, the pair on the settee fall silent, turning.

“A word, Miss Talbot?”

Miss Talbot immediately looks wary, though she nods.

“What is it?”

Anna narrows her eyes.

“A word in _private._ ”

The other woman hesitates, shoulders tensing, then arches a brow.

“You tend to have a sharp tongue, Miss Novak. I’d just as soon have your word with witnesses, in the event of any carnage.”

Anna rolls her eyes.

“ _Really_?”

Miss Talbot just crosses her arms and gives her an expectant look, though personally, Cas think she looks a little _nervous_.

Billie catches his eye and lifts her brows, and he shrugs back, equally curious to see what exactly this word will entail.

“Fine,” Anna huffs, straightening. “I just wanted to say — I find you insufferable.”

Even Max and Mrs. Hampton fall silent at that, and Cas gives his sister an alarmed look, because he’s absolutely sure this isn’t what they just discussed.

“You’re too proud,” she continues bluntly, and Miss Talbot stares, clearly as stunned as the rest of them. “You’re too sarcastic, you’re too _vain,_ and honestly, I’m not entirely convinced you _experience_ feelings without making an active effort to do so. At the very least, you seem easily able to shut them off altogether. And you can call yourself ‘Miss,’ but no matter how gracious you decide to be, you act every inch an arrogant royal.”

Miss Talbot’s mouth snaps shut, jaw tight.

“Well,” she says, dry. “It seems I was right to be concerned.”

“I’m not finished.” Anna takes a deep breath, fists curling at her sides. “I think I was blind, when I met you. I liked you from the start, because I didn’t know any better.”

Miss Talbot suddenly lurches to her feet, mouth flat.

“That is enough,” she interjects stiffly. “I think I had better return to my inn.”

“I know better now,” Anna insists, ignoring her. “And I think — there are a million more agreeable people between here and Edgewater, and my life will be much easier and vastly more pleasant with one of them.”

Miss Talbot nods tersely, smile brittle as she advances toward the doorway.

“And I’m sure I wish you and whatever mysterious citizen you choose every happiness together. Billie, tell the others I said ‘hello,’ if you would.”

“Certainly,” Billie agrees, looking between them with interest. “It was nice to see you.”

Anna quickly steps to the side, blocking Miss Talbot’s path, and though Cas can’t _quite_ interpret her expression, Anna obscuring most of his view before he has a chance to examine it, he’s not sure he would have been brave enough to stand in her way.

“ _H_ _owever_ ,” his sister continues sharply, chin high. “I _do_ know better now — and you know what?”

“No, and I don’t want t—“

“I don’t want anyone who isn’t you.”

Miss Talbot freezes.

“I — beg your pardon?’

“I don’t care how you want to do it, either. If you just want to stay with me when you come to Mills Park. If you want something different, or something more. But I want you. I want to at least try.”

Cas recovers from his own shock enough to shift to the side, anxious for Miss Talbot’s reaction, and finds her looking torn.

“I . . . Anna, I’m not sure that’s . . .”

“I am,” Anna says firmly. “And I’m willing to be patient while you make up your mind, but — I’ve already made up mine. And I’m not going to change it. And if you’re about to tell me it wouldn’t be right? I honestly don’t care. Take it or leave it.”

The room is utterly silent for a moment.

And then Miss Talbot shakes her head, stepping back.

Cas’s heart sinks.

“I’m sorry, Anna,” she says softly.

Anna nods.

“It’s fine. That’s what I expected.”

“I’ll . . . return to my inn, then.”

Anna shrugs.

“If you’d like. You should stay, though. The others would like to see you, I’m sure.”

Miss Talbot hesitates.

“Next time,” she finally says. “I’ll come after the New Year.”

And with a small nod, Miss Talbot gracefully hurries past, disappearing into the hall.

Anna’s shoulders sag, as she lets out a quiet breath, and Cas hovers behind her, uncertain.

A few moments later, they hear the front door open.

“Well, that’s that,” Anna mutters. “But technically, you were right. I’m no worse off than I started, am I?”

The door shuts, and Cas just looks at her, at a loss as to how to respond.

“So,” she continues, grimacing. “Who else could use a cup of—"

She cuts off, turning as they all hear footsteps echoing back down the hall, and a moment later—

Miss Talbot stalks back into the parlor, color high.

“It is _rich_ that you call me insufferable when you — _you —_ it is incredible to me that anyone here can stand to live with you,” she snaps, striding up to Anna and giving her a hard look.

Anna blinks, then bristles, shoulders drawing up.

“If that’s the case, then you should _thank_ me for directing you to stay elsew—"

“You’re a bloody nightmare, Anna. Everything is a fight with you. I’m not superstitious, but if a corpse ever claws its way out of the ground and starts walking, there’s not a doubt in my mind that it will be _yours,_ because you just don’t know when to _quit,_ do you?”

“It’s better than giving up too easily,” Anna retorts, and Miss Talbot huffs.

“ _You’d_ think so, wouldn’t you? You’re ambitious to a fault and stubborn in ways that could exhaust the patience of a saint, not that you’d care, since you always think you know better. And if there _are_ a million more agreeable persons between here and Edgewater? I doubt any one of them could stand to tolerate you,” she declares, lifting her chin. “So for _everyone’s_ sake — I think it ought to be me.”

And then—

She kisses Cas’s sister, right in front of all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> Implied/referenced Racism/Xenophobia: In expressing her insecurities over a new relationship, and her motivation for accepting her husband’s courtship, Susan references her mother not being from Winchester, and the preference of men in her town for women with a more Winchesterian appearance. She indicates that she appeared more obviously ‘other’ than her brother did, and that it mattered less for him, having gone to school and stayed in the capital, but that she was unmistakably perceived as different and inferior in her hometown. To clarify, the important point here is not that Susan is 'as good' as a Winchesterian, or that to not be Winchesterian would legitimately make her inferior or justify any of that. It's only that to be denied acknowledgment and acceptance from a culture you are very much a part of on the grounds that you don't look the part is unfair and hurtful, and more broadly, occupying an in-between state of some kind is a struggle in a world that demands clear definition.
> 
> Implied/referenced Past Miscarriage: Lucy has some rather profound feelings about cats, and while watching over Katherine, expresses her love for the creature, comparing it to how she might love a child. In doing so, it is implied that she previously lost a child, and will not be able to bear any in the future.
> 
> Implied/referenced sexual harassment: As Anna discusses her experiences after first leaving New Eden, she tells Cas about working as a housekeeper and her employer’s husband making untoward advances.
> 
> Implied/referenced attempted trafficking: After her experience as a housekeeper, Anna moved on to a new town, and in her desperation for work, was deceived by what are implied to be human traffickers of some kind, operating outside Winchester’s regulated laws. She is rescued by Bela as they are trying to take her away, but it is suggested she still feels stupid for her failure to recognize what was happening from the start, though this was absolutely not her fault.


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: references to past imprisonment/abuse/violence (details in the notes), please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> To Gwenwifar (if you're still reading), who basically called this like twenty chapters ago (!), and to all the rest of you who saw this coming - pat yourselves on the back and feel smug :D It took much longer than I thought to get them here, but I'm so excited we finally did ♡ Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> **Chapters 37 & 38 posted together**

The ride home feels like a fucking eternity, one with zero payoff at the end, since it’s taking him to a Cas-less Lawrence and terrifying conversations with the council, but Dean doesn’t so much as stop by his room before he takes off for Gordon’s study.

He barely slept, he’s felt sick and antsy since he kissed Cas goodbye last night, and even though Cas specifically said ‘don’t upset them,’ Dean’s willing to risk a little bit of offensive travel stench. Leaving Cas on that note _sucked_ , and whatever Cas said about being willing to wait for good news—

Dean doesn’t want to make him wait any longer than he has to.

Unfortunately, Gordon’s study is locked and empty — assuming Gordon’s not just breathing very, very quietly behind his desk, waiting for Dean to go away — and when he anxiously moves on in search of Jim, and then Missouri’s son, and finally anybody else he can think of who might be the least bit susceptible to his sob story—

He turns up _nothing._

“Dude,” Sam says, when he finally tracks him down, Dean prowling through the library in case one of them is doing research or some bullshit like that. “Of course you can’t find anyone. The _Hearings_ are in three days.”

Dean stares.

“The Hearings?” he echoes, because while that certainly explains the ghost town — they always take leave a week beforehand, since they meet for three days straight afterward — it never ceases to be a surprise to him, and this time, Dean has more to worry about than gritting his teeth through the boredom until the last citizen has said their piece.

“Shit. I forgot about that.”

Sam looks amused.

“Yeah. You usually do.”

“But — I need to talk to them,” Dean protests, ignoring that. “I can’t — I can’t just go in _cold_. And I’m supposed to go back to Mills Park before Christmas!”

“What? I thought Dad wanted you home through the holidays.”

“Yeah, and I’m _going_ to be, but — I have to get Cas first.”

Sam’s brows lift.

And then he lights up.

“Wait — you _asked_ him? He’s coming back?”

Dean hesitates.

“I — kinda? I hope? He said he wanted to be with me, so — so I told him I’d come talk to the council and figure out his options, and I’d be back before Christmas.”

Sam’s face falls.

“But the council’s not here.”

“Nope.”

“And . . . you’re not going to have a chance to talk to any of them outside of the meetings,” he adds slowly, and Dean grimaces.

“ _Nope_.”

“So . . . you’re gonna have to just . . .” Sam trails off. “Oh.”

Dean sighs, pulling out a chair at one of the tables and dropping into it, suddenly exhausted.

“It’s not — he said the important thing was being together. And — I don’t think they’ll have a problem with that, not at this point, so — maybe I should just play it safe and ask for that, and . . . work on the other stuff later.”

Sam blinks, and then he sucks in a breath.

“The other stuff?”

“But I want him to have options,” Dean mumbles, slumping. “And we had this — this really shitty talk about Bela, and he didn’t believe me when I said I wouldn’t marry her, and — he was really upset, Sam. He — God, he was so happy, when I told him how I wanted it to be, if he came with me, but as soon as he heard Edgewater wanted to talk marriage, he just . . .”

“Well, yeah. How would _you_ feel if Cas was going to come here, but he was going to marry someone else and — I don’t know, keep you on the side?”

Dean scowls, and if his stomach turns, at that, he doesn’t even try to pretend it’s because he hasn’t eaten yet.

“And that’s why I told him I wouldn’t,” he grits out. “Even if he’s not — even if it’s not the same, for him, he doesn’t deserve that. And even if he’d said he was totally cool with it — _I_ don’t want to, Sam.”

“Of course not.” Sam pauses, giving him an uneasy look. “You told him that, right?”

“Repeatedly,” Dean mutters, glum. “But I don’t think it helped. It — it fucking sucked, Sammy. He was so goddamn unhappy, by the time I left, and no matter what I said, it’s like he just — he’s so sure I’m not gonna come through. He doesn’t — well, he doesn’t trust me.”

Sam hesitates.

“Well . . . you marrying someone else is kind of a big deal.”

“But I’m not _going_ to. And I tried to tell him that, that it shouldn’t matter, that it definitely didn’t matter _now_ , but he just — Christ. He thinks I’m useless. And the worst part was, I couldn’t — there wasn’t a lot I could say. I wasn’t about to make a promise I’d have to break later, or — or push him in a direction he wouldn’t have gone on his own.”

Part of Dean thinks he should have, though, because leaving Cas like that — that upset, that _hopeless_ — was that really so much better?

Dean’s almost positive Cas wants him, for keeps, suspects Cas might even want _everything_ , like he said, but — how can he be sure?

And how can he be confident he’ll be able to _give_ it? At least until he feels out the council—

No matter how determined he is to try, he can’t be sure of anything.

Sam’s quiet for a moment, and then he sighs, pulling out the chair opposite and settling into it.

“Look — ideally, you wouldn’t have had to talk about that until you had a better idea of how the council was going to react, but — he knows how you feel, now. And he wants to be with you, too, right? _That’s_ the important thing. Even if you have to wait on the other stuff . . . I’m pretty sure he’s willing to.” Sam pauses. “Which — you meant that you were going to ask if you could marry him, right?”

Dean swallows.

“If it looks like there’s an opening. Obviously, if I’m busy just fighting for him to stay, that’s out of the question, at least for now, but — I kinda — I told him I’d get him as many options as I could, and even if I hadn’t . . .” Dean shrugs. “I’m gonna try. And — you know, if it’s a ‘no, not in a million years,’ maybe if I act like I’m gonna _compromise_ on marrying him . . . what if I get them to let me mate him? The marriage thing isn’t as important, right? And technically, he said he didn’t want to mate, but I — I get all kinds of mixed signals, and God knows he’s allowed to change his mind, in whatever direction, and he told me he wanted _everything_ , and if I could at least offer . . . and after that, if he really doesn’t want kids, I can suck it up and let them pick a noblewoman, but if he _does_ , and he doesn’t mind having them with me, then — I — maybe we could have a family. Or something. If he wanted. I — I don’t know.”

Sam’s all pinched and frowny by the time his rambling’s petered out, and Dean huffs.

“What? I know it’s a long shot, but — I was too much of a coward to let him go when I should have, Sam. I learned my lesson, and I’m not gonna chicken out on trying to keep him, not if that’s what he wants.”

Sam immediately softens.

“Of course not. Just — he said he didn’t want to mate you?”

“He said a life with me would be a life well-lived,” Dean counters hastily, lest Sam think he’s deluding himself again, because Cas _did_ , and then later he said he wanted to be with Dean _always_ , and no, that’s not exactly an ‘I love you,’ but Dean got an ‘I don’t think anyone cares for you the way I do,’ and you know what?

It’s close enough for him.

There’s a long silence, Sam’s expression slowly contorting.

“Wait,” he starts, lips twitching downward. “Wait — what exactly did you tell him?”

Dean blinks.

“About what? We talked about a lot of things, Sam.”

“About your _feelings_ , Dean.”

“Uh.” Dean’s neck heats, and he clears his throat. “Just — you know, the important stuff. That I wanted to be with him, too. That he was — uh. Special to me.”

Sam’s eye twitches.

“And that’s it?”

“Well, _no_ , obviously, but — Jesus, Sammy, a lot of stuff happened. I really don’t think you wanna hear about all of it.”

He lifts his brows meaningfully, but Sam just looks at some distant space beyond Dean’s ear, tired.

“You didn’t tell him you love him, did you?”

Dean freezes.

“I — dude, _no_ ,” he sputters. “That — that’s _way_ too much pressure for him.”

“And asking him to move to _Lawrence_ isn’t?”

“Uh, no, it totally is, but — he said he wanted to be with me _always!_ I couldn’t exactly offer to move to Sioux Falls!”

“I — Dean, he clearly meant he _loved_ you!””

Dean makes a face.

“This is _Cas_ , Sam. There’s no ‘clearly’ about it. Honestly, I’m probably crossing a shitfuckton of lines as it is, but — here we are.” He huffs. “He definitely wants to come to Lawrence, though. And I figure — once he’s here, he can work out the rest, and then — when he does, I’ll be ready.”

Sam studies him for a moment.

And then he presses his lips together, nodding.

“Right. Okay. Well, I agree that you should start by asking the council if he can stay. But then you should head back to Mills Park — as _soon_ as you can — let him know you love him, bring him back here, and then we can all work on the council members individually after the New Year.”

Dean scowls.

“Sam.”

“And this time, when you tell him you love him?” Sam gives him a bizarrely stern look. “ _Promise_ him you won’t marry anyone, if you can’t marry him.”

“I basically _did_ —"

“No, you didn’t,” Sam says tiredly. “At least, not the way you should have — because part of you is still afraid you _can’t_. But you can, Dean. You might not be able to promise you can marry _him_ , but that one — you can definitely figure that out. Or we can figure it out together. But seriously, man. He deserves to know he’s got you, whatever that ends up looking like.”

Sam takes a deep breath and stands.

“Now come on. Let’s go see Charlie.

Samandriel calls for midmorning tea, the next day, and though Cas’s initial impulse is to have Lucy tell him to address any future comments to the inside of his own posterior, he reminds himself that Samandriel is young and technically not responsible for the council’s inevitable ‘solution’ to the matter of Dean’s heirs, and as upsetting as his choice of conversation was—

Cas isn’t quite sure how to feel about it, anymore.

“She did _what_?”

Cas shrugs, taking a sip of his coffee.

“She kissed her.”

“In _front_ of you?”

“And others.” Cas pauses. “I don’t know if you’ve ever kissed someone you loved, Samandriel, but it’s very difficult to care about other things in the moment.”

Samandriel continues gaping for a moment — and then he lets out a loud, delighted laugh.

“Astonishing! I never would have guessed!” He laughs again, shaking his head. “You know, Susan’s always thought so, but they don’t get along at all. It’s hard to picture.”

“That’s why they don’t get along,” Cas informs him. “Miss Talbot initially rejected Anna, and apparently it made things awkward.”

Samandriel lifts his brows.

“Well, it usually does, if the feelings are real.” He pauses, sobering. “So . . . are they going to try to be together?”

“Yes? That seemed to be the conclusion.”

Samandriel nods.

“But I don’t think Edgewater lets women marry, either. Do you think they’ll mate?”

Cas gives him a startled look.

“Can they?”

“Well, some people might _frown_ on it, but I don’t know that your sister would care — especially if they stay in Sioux Falls.”

“But — how could either of them give the claiming bite?”

Samandriel cocks his head.

“The mating bite? Well, they’d both give it, Castiel, like any other couple.”

Cas stares.

“But — women don’t bite. Their mates claim them. Except Anna and Miss Talbot are both women.”

He just gets an incredulous look in return.

“Well, perhaps no one’s as — as _bitey_ as alphas tend to get _generally_ , but — how do you expect to mate properly without exchanging bites? It’s a much weaker bond, with just the one.” He makes a face. “I don’t think most women would stand for it.”

Cas sets down his coffee, struggling to understand.

“You’re an alpha, Samandriel. You’d let your mate _bite_ you?”

“Of course.” He sounds a little indignant. “If I’m going to mate someone, I’m going to do it right.”

“And — my sister and Miss Talbot are going to bite each other?”

Samandriel blinks.

“I — well, that would be up to them. It’s hardly anyone’s business, what they decide to do.” He sighs. “It’s a shame they can’t wed, though.”

Cas hesitates.

“Is the marriage so important?”

“Yes and no,” Samandriel muses, looking thoughtful. “Obviously, to a _couple_ , the mating is the most important thing, but socially and economically, the marriage is key. For a couple to mate but not marry means they weren’t _allowed_ to, which means there’s a reason for that — different classes or unconventional couples, like your sister and Miss Talbot — and it means that if one of them dies, the other might be left without means or protection, since those are things governed by marriage. It’s just more difficult to build a life together, if you’re not married; it can be very precarious, which is why it usually isn’t done.”

“Oh. But . . . if both parties can survive independently, and — and no one stops them from mating . . . then it’s alright, if they can’t marry. Isn’t it?”

“Well, _I_ think so. Really, they _should_ be allowed to marry. Things are changing all the time, so I don’t know why that can’t be one of them. What’s the real harm in it?”

Cas nods slowly.

“There isn’t any, I don’t think.” He hesitates, then adds, “Because . . . the important thing is that they’re happy. Isn’t it? Others — others should be irrelevant.”

Samandriel lights up.

“That’s exactly it, Castiel! There’s all this traditional nonsense about pairs that can’t have families together, but you know, who was ever happy having to have a family with someone they didn’t even like? And why should it even fall to someone else to decide what kind of life is going to make you happy at all? People deserve to have options, certainly, but after that — well, it should be up to them.”

“That would be nice,” Cas agrees, unsettled. “But — it isn’t. At least, not now.”

Samandriel looks thoughtful.

“No. Not now. But — anything could happen.” He smiles slightly. “You know — maybe your sister should to go to the Hearings and ask. If that’s what they both want.”

Cas blinks.

“Do you think the king would agree to it?”

“Well — technically, he has the power to make exceptions, but it’s bad practice to go around using it all the time, so what she’d _really_ be asking is to have the matter raised with the council, in hopes of changing the laws.”

“Oh. That would be good, wouldn’t it?”

“It would,” Samandriel agrees, smile widening. “He could say ‘no,’ but he might not, and then . . . it’s amazing, isn’t it? What one small effort has the potential to do.”

“Perhaps.” Cas furrows his brow. “You really think they would reconsider, just from her asking?”

Samandriel shrugs.

“He told me I could marry you instead of you being sent to the Gardens, when I asked. There were conditions, of course, but — it was something.”

Objectively, Cas supposes being married to Samandriel wouldn’t be terrible, if his other fate would really be to be live alone at the Gardens, but at this point, any fate that doesn’t tie him to Dean seems rather unbearable.

“What about you? Are you going to attend the Hearings again?”

“No.” Samandriel shakes his head. “I can’t really think of anything to ask.”

“Ah.” Cas wonders if Anna knows about them, but then — Miss Talbot is a princess. Even if the council changed the laws, he’s not sure a marriage between them would be possible. “It must have been frightening, though. To face the king.”

But then, maybe alphas don’t feel fear the same way, and Dean is just special in that respect, as he is in all others.

“Absolutely! I was _terrified_.” Ah. Perhaps not. “He just — _looks_ at you, like nothing in the world would faze him. Like he could motion a guard to shoot you at the drop of a hat, and simply carry on with the Hearings like it hadn’t happened!”

Cas tenses. Maybe he’s been unfair to Dean, if the king is so formidable.

“And — you did it anyway?”

Samandriel leans back in his chair, smiling.

“I thought it was the right thing to do, Castiel. Which doesn’t make you less _scared_ — but it makes it worth it.”

“But — he could have even just had you thrown in the dungeon, though.” If he put a prince in there for three weeks, Cas has no idea what he might do to any random citizen that offended him. “What if it was for nothing?”

“I suppose he could have, if he felt like I’d threatened him in some way — and if I’d thought it really wouldn’t do any good, I guess I wouldn’t have tried. But there’s usually not a problem with the decisions King John makes; the problem is the ones he doesn’t. And I thought, if I faced him — maybe he’d make one, and it would be the right one.”

Cas nods slowly.

“And . . . you don’t think he’d throw anyone in the dungeon, as long as they didn’t threaten him?”

“I’ve never _heard_ of anything like that happening, and honestly, I don’t think it would. Though in hindsight, I might have been a little rude to him.” Samandriel narrows his eyes slightly. “I think he deserved it, though.”

“Possibly.” He _did_ put Dean in the dungeons for three weeks, so Cas is inclined to agree.

Samandriel studies him for a moment, and then he shrugs, bringing the cup to his lips with a bland smile.

“Anyway, that’s the whole point of the Hearings. If something’s important to you — you have a chance to ask for it. And especially if you’re polite about it — I’d think the worst that could happen is that he’d deny your request, in which case . . . there’s no real downside to just asking.”

_What’s the worse that can happen? They send you to the capital to bear the prince’s children against your will?_

Anna wasn’t wrong, when she said that, and neither was Cas, when he threw the words back at her; and Samandriel, as upsetting as he can be, isn’t wrong, either.

There are times — though Cas is wise enough to know they’re rarer than people seem to think — where you have nothing to lose.

“No,” he eventually says. “I suppose not. You said something to that effect, the other day.”

Samandriel blinks.

“Oh, did I?”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“You said many very offensive things.”

Samandriel looks vaguely abashed.

“Really? Charlotte says I can get carried away.”

“That is one word for it.” Cas frowns. “Perhaps some of those things had merit, whether it was your place to say them or not.”

“It might not have been,” Samandriel admits, coughing “But — I thought it was better than important things going unsaid altogether. Sometimes — sometimes there must be a villain of sorts, to bring about a happy ending.”

Ah. Too many novels, just as Cas suspected.

“Well, this is real life, and I’m not ready for it to end yet, in a happy way or otherwise,” he says dryly. “Please restrain yourself in the future.”

Samandriel opens his mouth, clearly about to object, and Cas fixes him with a level stare.

“I briefly thought I’d rather not speak to you again at all.”

His face falls.

“But I was just—"

“Doing what you thought was right,” Cas concludes, nodding. “And that is a commendable effort. However — it’s presumptuous to assume you know what that is.”

“But I _do_ —"

“No. You don’t.” Cas looks down. “I don’t, either. I know — I know what’s worth the effort, but — I don’t think anyone knows what effort is the most worthwhile.”

“That’s why you try,” Samandriel protests. “You’re right, no one knows what the best thing to do is, not without a crystal ball, but you find the best answer you can, and then you do it. The alternative is doing nothing.”

“The better option, in some cases.”

Samandriel frowns.

“Do you wish I hadn’t said anything?”

Cas hesitates.

“No.” He stares into his cup, troubled. “No, but — I’m uncomfortable, now. Everything is uncomfortable now. I don’t know what to expect.”

Samandriel doesn’t answer for a moment.

“Did you ask him?”

_Ask. I’ll do everything in my power to give it to you. I swear._

Cas grimaces.

“I spoke to him,” he mutters.

Samandriel’s brow creases.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I had to think about things I didn’t want to.” Cas scowls. “And still must.”

“Like what?”

Cas sighs, taking a sip, the coffee lukewarm when it his his tongue.

He drinks it anyway.

“He expects me to ask for what I want.”

Samandriel lights up.

“That means he’s open to giving you more.”

“Dean might be, but his council likely isn’t. And . . . I’m beginning to think it will hurt him as well as me, if he has to deny me.”

“Hm.” Samandriel pauses, for so long Cas wonders if at last, he has no further opinions to offer. “It’s a pity you can’t ask his council, then.”

Cas stills.

Samandriel lifts his cup, almost offensive in how carefree and unbothered he is as he takes a long, leisurely sip of it.

“Even if I could,” Cas says slowly. “Even then — what if I asked for something Dean didn’t want?”

Samandriel lowers the cup, surprised.

“Then you wouldn’t do it? I asked King John if I could marry _you_ , Castiel, and he gave his permission. But if things had gone that way, and you didn’t want it, when it came time — well, you would have told me.” He smiles. “You _did_ tell me, when you didn’t want to marry me. I’d think a prince should have the courage to do the same, if it came to that.”

Cas swallows.

“What if he didn’t want to disappoint me?”

Samandriel huffs a laugh.

“If he cared so much about you he’d do something like _marry_ you just to avoid hurting your feelings — I can’t imagine he’d think of declining in the first place.”

“Oh.”

“You’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, Castiel — but you still didn’t hesitate to reject me.” Samandriel shakes his head. “If Prince Dean is really worthy of _your_ feelings — well, then he should at least be the kind of person who’d own to his, whatever they are.”

“I see.”

It makes sense, when put that way, but it also made sense to tell Anna she had nothing to lose.

When it comes to himself, however . . .

It seems so complicated. With him and Dean — it can’t possibly be as simple as just _asking_ , can it?

“In any case,” Samandriel says, setting his now-empty cup back on the tray. “I’m meant to return home for Christmas, so I thought I’d go around town and finish finding gifts. Would you like to come?”

Cas hesitates.

“No. I think I’ll go another day.”

Samandriel nods.

“Alright. Thank you for the tea.” He pauses. “Also . . . I’m sorry I overstepped, last time. But — I meant what I said. And I hope you continue to think about it.”

_And when it comes to your own happiness? That is the last place you should just be_ accepting _whatever happens!_

“I will,” he says honestly.

It’s hard not to, at this point. It’s hard not to think of what any of them have said, not Samandriel or Dean or Anna or even Susan.

It’s hard not to think of Anna and Miss Talbot, kissing in the parlor, or of the faceless noblewoman in Cas’s future, who will no doubt make every effort to secure Dean’s attention and affection for herself.

It’s hard not to think of Dean’s children, growing up in the castle, of Dean, away spending time with them, because they have nothing at all to do with Cas.

It’s hard not to think, if that’s really how it’s going to be — if sacrifices like that must be made, to have him—

Will Cas really be content?

Anyway, Susan comes to help him clean up when Samandriel is gone, mischievously informing him that Anna and Miss Talbot haven’t been seen all day, with not a soul able to confirm their whereabouts, and Cas reluctantly allows himself to be pulled into speculation.

“Vivian lurked outside Anna’s door for a full half-hour, but there wasn’t a peep to be heard from within.”

“Why didn’t she just knock?”

“Well, she didn’t want to interrupt!”

Cas supposes that’s fair; he never liked it when someone knocked while he was with Dean.

“Alright. Perhaps they aren’t in her room.”

“Perhaps, but it’s thirty degrees out. They must be indoors _somewhere_ .”

“They could be walking through town,” Cas protests. “Samandriel is shopping for gifts, today; they may have had the same idea.”

Susan snorts.

“If my barkeep declared himself and kissed me in the parlor, we’d spend the next day in bed, even if the day was Christmas itself. Mark my words, Castiel. They’re languishing among the pillows, scheming on how they’re going to be together.”

Cas thinks of Dean, in bed that morning, telling Cas how it might be, if Cas came to Lawrence.

“Declared himself,” he manages. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“What it sounds like? Like your sister and Miss Talbot did. They declared their love for each other.”

“That’s not what they said.”

Susan laughs.

“That’s because of the type of people they are, but trust me, Castiel — that’s what they meant.”

“Oh. And . . . that’s what you’d do, after you declared yourself? You’d — talk about being together? In bed?”

“Well, I wouldn’t be walking through town shopping for Christmas gifts, that’s for sure,” she teases, then sighs. “But to each their own, I guess.”

“Ah.”

“Speaking of declaring oneself,” she says abruptly, shutting the cupboard and leaning back against the counter. “When is his highness coming back?”

Cas hesitates.

“I don’t know. He said he’d try to return before Christmas. But I told him not to rush the council, when he asked.”

Her nose wrinkles.

“So — what? You’re just — stuck here waiting, then ?”

Cas suppresses a sigh.

“Basically.”

“God. I despise waiting,” she mutters. “ _Especially_ if I don’t even know how long I’ll have to wait for.”

Cas doesn’t bother holding the sigh back this time.

“Me, too, Susan. More than I can say.”

Cas has spent his whole life waiting, it feels like, and every single time, what he wanted never happened.

And anxious as he is, a part of him is dreading Dean’s return, in some ways, because there’s always a chance it may be bad news and nothing else.

Susan’s quiet for a moment.

“Did I ever tell you how I got away?”

Cas blinks.

“Got away from what?”

“The attic.” She clears her throat. “My mother-in-law.”

“Oh. No? I assumed Miss Mills just — found you.”

“Sort of.” Susan bites her lip. “I pried up a floorboard.”

“A floorboard?”

“Yes. From under the bed. My mother-in-law had me doing mending and such, and I worked at it with the needles, over time.”

“What did you do with it?”

She shrugs.

“I hit her with it. Probably more than I needed to, honestly. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have kept at it, if I hadn’t gotten a bad splinter.” She coughs. “Anyway, she had the key on her, and I unlocked the shackle and ran.”

“Oh.”

“I’d always thought — everyone must have noticed they hadn’t seen me. I could only be mourning in my house for so long, right? Someone would find me, at some point, wouldn’t they?”

He hesitates, unsure.

“I think?”

“I think so, too, honestly. A girl I went to school with found me, and she contacted Miss Mills for me. She even hid me until she got there. She said they’d been starting to wonder.”

“Hid you?”

Susan looks sheepish.

“I — I hit my mother-in-law quite a few times. It complicated things.” She sniffs. “But that’s beside the point. The point is — even if you’re pretty sure it’s going to happen, sometimes you get tired of waiting, Castiel.”

“You do,” he agrees slowly. “I don’t know that hitting anyone with a floorboard will help me, in this case.”

“You don’t have to _hit_ anybody,” she protests. “But — maybe it’s time to act, instead of just waiting.”

For a moment, he doesn’t answer.

“Maybe,” he finally says. “I suppose I could think about it.”

She winks.

“You might as well.”

So he thinks about it. He thinks about what Samandriel said, and he thinks about his sister and Miss Talbot, and he thinks about Dean, practically begging him to just _ask_.

And as terrifying as that prospect is—

Cas thinks about waiting, too, thinks about _thinking_ and _worrying_ and torturing himself for what could turn out to be _weeks_ , only to get an answer that still leaves him with less than he wants, that still leaves it to _him_ to try and ask Dean, if he really wants more

And by the time Susan and Max are knocking at his door, wanting to know if he’s coming down for dinner, he’s decided that perhaps, Samandriel was right.

_I thought it was the right thing to do, Castiel. Which doesn’t make you less scared — but it makes it worth it._

If there’s any chance he can have what he wants, if it’ s genuinely unlikely he’ll end up worse than he started out . . .

It doesn’t make him less scared, but—

It does, perhaps, make it worth it.

Alex doesn’t bat an eye when he asks to borrow a horse for a trip, and the after-dinner crowd in the parlor advises him extensively on traveling safely and what things cost in the capital.

“It’s all regulated there, at least, so as long as you don’t wander into some shady place on the outskirts, no one’ll try to cheat you,” Meredith assures him. “If you don’t see posted rates for the night, find somewhere else to stay.”

“Taverns and restaurants should have their prices written, too, though you might have to ask to see the sheet,” Elizabeth adds, and Cas nods.

“How much will I need?”

In the end, the group follows him up to his room to help him pack — an absolutely ridiculous number of drawers and particularly extravagant nightgowns get thrown in his bag, even though Cas expects to return by Christmas — and portion out his money into a purse Vivian retrieves from her room, one that loops around a button on his waistcoat and tucks inside the inner pocket, and when they’ve drawn him painstakingly detailed instructions for his journey and enthusiastically wished him luck (despite his failure to disclose the nature of it), the group leaves him to get his rest so he can set off in the morning.

Anna is staying with Miss Talbot at the inn, according to a hastily scrawled message they received after dinner, so before he retires, Cas writes a note of his own and slips it under her door, just in case.

And then, with all his arrangements made and a plan in place—

He wraps himself up in Dean’s blanket, a blanket that smells like _both_ of them — that smells precisely the way Cas hopes his bed might _always_ smell, after this — and to the best of his ability, he tries to sleep.

Lawrence is larger than Sioux Falls, and busier, too, but despite his unease the few times he went about while he was still at the castle-

Cas finds himself considerably less intimidated, riding in.

One of the guards on the road in confirms directions to the inn one of the girls recommended, and Cas heads straight there, heart thundering beneath the cloth of his second-favorite waistcoat, because while the quiet journey there was surprisingly pleasant — now that the castle looms in sight, strangely both familiar and not, his nerves have returned with a vengeance.

He can’t believe he really intends to do this.

Anyway, he finds the street without too much difficulty, and when he encounters a cheery young woman selling flowers at the corner, he impulsively buys a small bouquet, just for reassurance. He can put them in his room, he decides, even if he won’t be staying long.

(Should he even be staying at _all_? Surely, this is madness. This isn’t an incidental confrontation in the parlor, where a firm ‘no’ would simply result in him retreating to his room to bear his disappointment in private. This is — even accepting the risk of asking, out of all the methods he might choose to _do_ so, this is . . .)

(Being in love with Dean has finally driven him insane, hasn’t it?)

_Anyway_ , the maid helpfully supplies a vase and water, so Cas shaves and takes an extremely distracted bath before asking for dinner to be sent up, shying away from the loud, busy tavern side of the inn, though he enjoyed his last visit to such a place.

As nervous as he is, a room full of strangers will no doubt make it worse.

It’s just as well; his room is tidy and comfortable, surprisingly warm thanks to some sort of venting system the maid seems rather excited about, and what little he remembers to taste of his food speaks well of the inn’s kitchen. It’s late, by the time he’s set his dishes outside the door, and after a day spent mostly on horseback, he falls asleep with surprisingly little difficulty, hopes and fears for the morning settling down right along with him.

Of course, they’re in full force the next morning, and Cas dons his navy three-piece with shaking hands. Dean thinks he looks nice in this one, or at least, he has in the past.

Cas hopes it helps.

Still — once Cas is on his horse and ready to set out, a part of him seriously considers going back for his things and heading to Mills Park instead. Dean expected him to wait; Dean told him, quite specifically, to ask _Dean_ for what he wanted.

What if this ruins everything?

Nonetheless, Cas determinedly squashes his nerves and all the pessimistic thoughts that follow, and though the reins quiver slightly in his grasp, he rides toward the castle with purpose.

There’s a significant line, already, a consequence of his extra hour in bed, lying petrified as he imagined all the worst possible outcomes for himself (though he doesn’t honestly expect it to change anything, one way or the other), and he joins the queue with a mixture of relief and frustration.

Part of him just wants it over with, but another part of him is dreading it enough that in some ways, the long line feels like a stay of execution.

It’s not much of one, though; it moves with surprising speed, a steady stream of onlookers filtering in to watch, and by the time the Hall comes into view, edges visibly crowded with them, Cas is suddenly wishing he could somehow request a _private_ audience.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss Anna’s fear of looking foolish.

Anyway, it’s a long walk from the door to the steps leading up to the thrones, and though they shut the doors behind the man in front of him, Cas can still hear the murmur of the crowd, King John’s voice periodically carrying over it, though he can’t make out all the words. He remembers what Samandriel said about him, then, but just as he’s wondering, for the thousandth time, if he’s bound to regret this day’s work—

The doors reopen, guards ushering the other man out, and a moment later, Cas is being beckoned in.

He suddenly thinks he might be sick.

“Stop at the stairs,” he’s reminded, and with that terrifyingly vague instruction, he’s nudged forward, beginning the long walk up to the steps.

Whispers break out around him, and as he nears, his eyes automatically seek out Dean, seated to the right and — ah, yes. Gaping at him.

He thinks he sees Dean’s mouth shape his name, green eyes wide, and with a fortifying breath, Cas carefully looks away.

Dean can voice his opinions later, when Cas’s legs aren’t shaking and his mouth isn’t so dry he’s afraid he won’t be able to get the words out.

This, here?

This is between Cas and his king.

He comes to a stop at the bottom of the steps, duly kneeling, his head bowed , and when he rises, King John lifts his brows.

“Your Majesty,” Cas greets him quietly. “And — your Highness. My name is Castiel Novak.”

He can feel Dean’s eyes on him, but he ignores it, not quite brave enough to look.

“I’m aware. Welcome to the Hearings, Castiel Novak.” John tilts his head, watching him curiously. “What happens to be the nature of your request?”

Cas takes a deep breath, lifting his chin and trying, desperately, to project a confidence he doesn’t feel.

_Because maybe sometimes, there really isn’t anything you can do — but it’s still worth trying._

“It’s of a personal nature,” he answers evenly, and John blinks.

“Ah. I actually meant—"

“I’d like to have your son.”

For a long moment, the Hall is dead quiet, a sea of stunned faces at Cas’s back, not that he seems to be aware of it, and as the seconds pass, Dean is distantly surprised he doesn’t just slide right out of his throne, every bone in his body dissolved from the shock of Cas being here today, standing in front of Dean’s father and saying what Dean’s pretty sure he just said but is still struggling to wrap his mind around because _how_?

Eventually, John clears his throat.

“My son,” he repeats. “Sam?”

Cas draws back slightly, brow furrowing.

“No, though — I’m very fond of him, as well.”

Dean manages to tear his eyes away, then, because while the temptation is to look at Cas, to try and guess, somehow, what the hell is going through his head right now, Cas’s reactions aren’t the most important ones here, and if Dean needs to intervene, he wants to be ready.

John raises his brows.

“Then — you mean my heir.”

Cas frowns heavily.

“I mean Dean.”

Dean watches his dad, uneasy — John doesn’t like cheek — and he’s pretty sure he sees his father’s lips twitch, clearly suppressing a grimace of some kind.

“I see. I admit, I had some other plans for him.”

At the bottom of the steps, Cas quickly shakes his head.

“And I promise not to interfere with those plans. My request would simply be room and board at the castle, and access to your son when he’s not otherwise occupied.”

Of course, Dean flushes slightly at that, because _seriously_ , Cas? _Access_? Does he not see Dean, sitting right here?

“In exchange for what?” John asks curiously. “This seems to be a purely self-indulgent request, Mr. Novak.”

Cas nods.

“It is. And if you have work for me, I’ll gladly do it. However—" Cas hesitates, then takes a deep breath. “I understand you have yet to choose a volunteer.”

“A volunteer.”

“To bear your son’s heirs,” he clarifies, and Dean’s pulse abruptly doubles, because Cas can’t possibly be about to— “Given that you deemed me suitable at some point in time — I will bear them. And all I ask in return is that I be allowed to stay with him.”

John raises his brows.

“And . . . nothing else?”

“Nothing else,” Cas confirms, even, and when John nods, Dean swears he almost looks disappointed.

“Well, this is a matter you should discuss with the council, I believe. I’ll ask you to return and present your request to them tomorrow morning. Ten o’ clock.”

Cas nods, somehow unfazed, even though Dean is clinging to the arms of his throne, heart hammering as he tries to process what’s happening.

“With pleasure. Thank you very much for your consideration, your Majesty,” he adds, kneeling again.

And then Dean watches as his father dismisses him and Cas exits the Hall, without ever even looking back.

“So. Any thoughts on Mr. Novak’s request?” his dad asks over dinner later, because of all the nights to decide he wants company, he somehow managed to choose the one where Hearings didn’t close till eight and Dean’s need to go find Cas and talk to him is a real, physical urge, one that’s almost painful for him to suppress.

Dean takes a deep breath, forcing himself to stay in his chair and cut his steak while he tries to focus on the convers—

“Wait, what?” he asks, the question finally sinking in, and John pauses, arching a brow.

“You remember him. Young man you brought back from New Eden? Asked for you today?” Dean swears he sees a smirk flicker across his father’s face. “Well, _access_ to you, anyway.”

“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

“Alright. What’d you think about it?”

Dean hesitates. After two days of intensive brainstorming and soul-crushing dread, this isn’t _at all_ how he wanted to ask about this. And like his dad said, this is ultimately a matter for the council. His _dad’s_ sure as hell not about to exercise his kingly authority just for the sake of Dean’s personal happiness, especially if the council already ends up agreeing to let Cas stay. What would be the point?

Fortunately, Dean doesn’t get a chance to answer.

“Well, I’ll give you time to think about it,” John says abruptly. “If you have something to say — you can say it tomorrow.”

And with that, his father promptly segues into a discussion of new phaeton models, and with great relief, Dean forces down his meal and gamely tries to follow.

John meanders through conversation in a way Dean can literally never remember experiencing before, and only at eleven-fifteen, when Dean genuinely feels like he’s about to pass out from sheer frustration and thwarted intent does John give the clock a blandly startled look.

“Christ, look at the hour,” he remarks, standing with a yawn. “You should head to bed, son. Council review starts at eight.”

Dean blinks.

“I don’t — I don’t usually attend those.”

John shrugs.

“Might as well start. You’ve been giving some good input, lately.”

Which, Dean’s both surprised by and appreciative of the compliment, but—

But he doesn’t _want_ to go to a day-long council meeting at eight. He wants to go track Cas down and demand an explanation and if that explanation is the one he’s low-key desperately hoping for, he wants an invitation to stay overnight and talk it all through and face the council in the morning _together_.

But his dad is looking expectant and even if he weren’t, Dean knows this isn’t optional, and since he can’t think of a good excuse to refuse — at least, not one his father will agree with—

He swallows his disappointment and nods.

“Thanks, Dad. I’ll, uh. See you in the morning, then.”

And because Dean can’t reasonably go banging on Cas’s door in the middle of the night, no matter how badly he feels like he needs answers, he says good night to his father and reluctantly trudges to his room to sleep.

The first two hours of the council meeting are the longest of Dean’s life, and considering he once spent three weeks in the dungeon with Ed and Harry?

He’s about ready to snap off a chair leg and beat himself with it by the time someone finally knocks and announces one Mr. Novak’s arrival, and as it is, he barely manages to stay in his seat when they lead Cas through the doors.

It doesn’t help that Cas looks _gorgeous_ , the severity of his navy shirt and grey suit offset by that whimsical tan coat Pamela made him for the Drive, hair as fucked as ever and blue eyes intent as he approaches the council table. His nose and cheeks are pink, like he’s been out in the cold, and as Dean realizes that coat couldn’t possibly have been suited for Winter, no matter how far South they are, he suddenly wonders if Cas wore it out of preference or if he doesn’t _have_ a proper winter coat, because actually, he left Lawrence before the season turned, which means he wouldn’t have winter suits, either, and jesus, Anna would make sure he was set up with anything he needed, wouldn’t she? Or is Cas just wandering around in lightweight cotton nonsense and hoping all the muscle on him will keep him toasty?

God _damn_ it, Dean’s a terrible — whatever he is to Cas. He has no idea what’s about to happen, what kind of answer the council will give, what Cas even expects him to do here, but as soon as it’s done with and he can finally get a moment alone with him to figure out what the hell’s actually going on, what Cas is actually saying he _wants—_

Dean’s getting him a proper goddamn coat.

_I’d like to have your son._

(And anything else he could possibly need or want.)

The footman directs Cas to a stop near the head of the table, Cas standing calmly right in Dean’s line of sight, and if Dean wondered why Cas wasn’t looking at him yesterday, he’s especially confused now.

He’s right here, eyes glued Cas’s face, struggling not to just get up and go stand beside him; how can Cas just — not even _look_ at him?

“This is Castiel Novak,” John informs the table, and Dean tears his eyes away, giving the rest of them an uneasy onceover. There’s curiosity, mostly, but Tara’s eyes are narrowed and George is pursing his lips and Dean hopes the others aren’t about to follow their lead. “He’s here to restate his request from the Hearings.”

“Does he need to be here for us to discuss it?” George demands. “We should review it the way we would any other.”

John raises a brow.

“This is a complicated matter, George. Not to mention it concerns an issue some of you were pretty damn keen to resolve.”

“Surely you see the flaws in such an arrangement,” George protests, and John tilts his head.

“You haven’t heard his proposal, yet.”

George gives him an incredulous look.

“I’m sure everyone from here to the Eastern border has heard of his _proposal_ —"

John clears his throat, and George quiets, clearly frustrated.

“Mr. Novak,” John says pointedly. “State your request.”

Dean tries and fails not to hold his breath, scanning Cas’s unsettlingly neutral face and instinctively scenting the air, although as still as Cas is standing, Dean can’t pick up even the barest wisp of sweetness or rain from where he’s sitting.

Cas nods, oblivious to his anxious turmoil.

“My gratitude, your Majesty.” He turns slightly, blue eyes flicking over the faces at the table, once again avoiding Dean’s, and just when Dean is about to cough or stretch or do something obvious and eye-catching because _seriously_ , how is Cas not desperate to check in with him the way he’s kind of desperate to check in with Cas—

Dean sees his fingers curl in at his sides, shaking just slightly, and his own thudding heart sort of seizes up inside his chest.

Cas is — nervous. Cas is _nervous_ , somehow came all the way to Lawrence, came to the castle _by himself,_ and asked the fucking _King_ for permission to be with Dean, offering to bear his children like that could ever be a fair price to pay, and suddenly, Dean is acutely, painfully aware of the fact that after all of his promises and reassurances to Cas, here he is, just sitting at the table like a useless, pedantic walking asshole named George.

Cas takes a deep breath, and then opens his mouth to speak.

“I — I want to marry him.”

The silence in the room turns deafening, and Cas’s eyes fly to Dean’s, wide and shocked, his mouth still hanging open.

“What?”

Dean hastily pushes back his chair and stands, some distant part of his mind wondering if this was _really_ the best way to do this, especially after days of plotting with Sam and Charlie, but you know what?

_Fuck it._

Cas is here _now_ , offering everything he has to give, and trying to boil the council like a frog isn’t going to cut it, after all.

“I want to marry him,” Dean repeats, turning toward his dad. “And mate him. And — anything else he’s willing to give me.”

“You want to _mate_ me?” he hears Cas whisper, and Dean suddenly thinks he knows why Cas hadn’t been looking at him, earlier, because his blood is thin in his veins and his pulse is racing and a part of him kind of feels like it’s going to vomit (probably the stomach part) and it’s all he can do to keep looking at his father, never mind having to face _Cas’s_ reaction to all of it.

John simply gazes back, terrifyingly impassive, though at least he’s not laughing at Dean.

“You want to marry him,” he echoes, considering. “Aren’t you the one who let him go in the first place?”

Dean hesitates.

Then he straightens, clenching his fists.

“Because it was the right thing to do.” He takes a breath. “And this is, too.”

“Ridiculous,” George splutters. “You already let him go! You owe him _nothing_ —"

“Quiet,” John says sharply, though he doesn’t look away from Dean. “So — you feel obligated to him?”

Cas sucks in a breath, and Dean quickly shakes his head.

“Not like that. But — I _am_ going to be with him. That’s not negotiable, not at this point — not as long as he’s willing. What that has to look like — well, that’s up to you. But if he _is_ willing, if he’ll have me . . . I want to do it right. I want to offer him everything someone else would, everything anyone else would be able to expect.”

He can see George, twitching in his peripheral, but John isn’t looking at anyone else and Dean doesn’t either, instincts telling him that right now, his dad’s opinion might be the only one that matters.

And even though he has no reason to think his father would deem something like this that worthy of his _attention_ , never mind his interference—

Dean listens to his instincts.

“I see.” John studies him, terrifyingly neutral. “You’re still young, Dean. Are you sure this is really what you want?”

Dean hesitates.

And then he drops to one knee, lowering his head.

“I’d give up my crown — I’d give up _everything_ — if I thought it would make him happy. But it won’t. So all I can do is ask you to let me give him choices.” He swallows, then adds, “Please, Dad.”

For a long, awful moment, his father says nothing.

And then—

“Huh.” He clears his throat. “Well, alright, then. Sounds reasonable to me.”

Dean freezes, uncomprehending, and then jerks his head up just as George lurches out of his chair, slapping his palms against the table.

“You can’t _possibly_ —"

“I really can, George,” John says, sounding _bored_ , of all things. “Sit down and let’s move on to the next request.”

Dean just stares at him, stunned.

“Absolutely not,” George snaps, face red. “I don’t know what game his Highness is playing, but — this is ridiculous, your Majesty. I have never known you to be indulgent, and this is the worst possible time to start.”

“Indulgent,” John muses, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers together. “Is it? I’ve never seen my son work as hard, invest as much, or do a fraction of the paperwork as he has the last few months.”

George withdraws, baffled.

“What does that have to do with anything? And as army captain—"

“As army captain, he runs around goofing off with his buddies, for the most part. I’m not saying he hasn’t put in his time or gotten results, but that comes easy to him, and a part of him loves it.” John shrugs. “I was starting to worry his little brother was going to end up doing everything else for him, because Dean’s just never been interested.”

“It’s the younger son’s responsibility—"

John snorts.

“To do a lot of it, sure, but if Dean’s going to be King, he better be King. And the young man from New Eden’s been making a king out of him better than any of _us_ have managed.” He cocks his head, apparently unfazed by Dean’s frozen stupefaction at his feet. “I don’t know, George. I think that deserves a reward.”

“A _reward_? We already let him go, and we’re pouring resources into that stupid town of his, besides! This is _beyond_ —"

“Anyway,” John continues, tired. “If you don’t think Dean and ‘the younger son’ will just end up running off to God knows where if we say no, then you obviously haven’t been paying attention. It’s our duty, as King and Council, to act in the interests of the kingdom, and you know what? I think letting him have this is in those interests.”

At the other end of the table, Tara clears her throat, and finally, Dean manages to collect himself, glancing toward her.

“And if the council disagrees?” she asks, watching John with narrowed eyes.

He raises his brows.

“Are you saying you’ll hold an opposition vote?”

She looks back, even.

“If we must.”

There’s a huff from George as he drops back into his chair.

“It’s useless,” he spits. “Singer won’t vote with us. He loves those boys like his own sons.”

“Well, yes, George,” John interjects, looking amused. “That _is_ one of the reasons I appointed him.”

George gapes, speechless in his outrage, and beside him, Gordon snickers.

“Look at this way,” he drawls. “Some of us have been talking over this for weeks, and trust me — you won’t even get a majority. Let it go, man.”

Which — for a moment, Dean’s just confused, because how the fuck were they already talking about Dean _marrying_ Cas, if they didn’t even know what he’d been up to the last few months? Was he that obvious while Cas was still living here? — but then it sinks in that whether it’s up to his father or up to his council, the answer is _yes —_ that the only thing left to do is find out what Cas wants, that at the very least, Cas wanted him enough to — to come to the castle and _ask_ for him, and suddenly, Dean doesn’t give a damn about anything except getting Cas alone and finding out for sure.

And for once—

For once, he’s more excited than afraid of the answer he’s about to get.

“Get up, son,” John mutters as the other councilmembers join the debate, and after a moment to gather his bearings, Dean quickly gets to his feet, at a loss as to what to say. “And actually, show Mr. Novak out. I think we can handle processing the other requests without you.”

His eyes twinkle as he says it — his dad, the King of Winchester’s, eyes fucking _twinkle_ — and Dean swallows a sudden lump in his throat.

“Yeah. Of course.” He hesitates. “Thanks, Dad.”

John shrugs.

“Don’t make me regret it.”

“I won’t,” Dean says quickly. “I swear I won’t.”

“Good.” And then — his dad actually _smiles_. “Now get out so we can move on before George has an aneurysm.”

Dean doesn’t need telling twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> References to past abuse/violence: Speaking with Cas, Susan talks about her escape from the attic, and her hopes regarding someone noticing she was gone or coming to help her. Her mother-in-law would have her do seamstress work, and over time, Susan pried free a floorboard, which she eventually beat her mother-in-law with to get away. It is implied that she hurt her mother-in-law severely, and these circumstances complicated things from a legal perspective.


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: references to past abuse (the time Cas was whipped), explicit sexual content (scene marked with *** at the beginning and end, details in the notes), references to gendered colors for infants (blue for boys in this culture, though this is neither universal IRL or something that makes any particular sense), non-explicit mpreg/childbirth, please let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> **Chapter 37 and 38 posted together**
> 
> Well, here we are at last. I hope you all learned a valuable lesson about trust and why I don’t deserve yours. ;)
> 
> Seriously, though, I really want to say thank you to all of you. This was my first time posting something that wasn’t already complete, and while the effort to share something I already have would always be worth it on the offchance someone might enjoy it, creating something new is a bit more of a trick. I've wanted to give up on this so many times, and I probably would have if it had just been me. A lot of this story has been about hope, about fighting for the good things, and I’ve been trying to write it at one of the most hopeless and tired times in my life (I know I’m not alone in feeling that way). Your feedback and support is what’s brought us here, so thank you so much for sticking with me and taking the time to give it. I know this has been a frustrating journey at times, but despite its flaws, I hope it has proven worthwhile, and I'm excited and grateful to have been able to see it through.
> 
> So thank you very, very much. It's been a pleasure, and I hope you all take care (and I'm deeply sorry if you read the late night rambling version of this note). Please enjoy ♡

It was a long evening, and an even longer night, Cas’s resolve crumbling the moment he stepped outside the castle gate, ground to nothing by doubts in the long, empty hours that followed, and by the time morning came and he found himself being led through unfamiliar halls, directed to stand before the endless-seeming table full of King and council and _Dean—_

He wasn’t quite sure how he’ d get the words out.

_Now_ , though—

Now he’s not sure how he came to be walking this corridor, Dean’s hand tight around his, firmly pulling him along to a destination Cas neither knows or cares about. Dean’s words are looping through his mind, impossible and unmistakable, and Cas is too preoccupied with questioning his reality to even find words to voice his confusion over it.

_I want to marry him. And mate him. And anything else he’s willing to give me._

Have frustration and want somehow managed to _actually_ drive him insane? And more importantly — does he _care_?

He swallows, finally remembering to squeeze Dean’s hand back as he hastens along after him, and Dean glances over his shoulder, expression unreadable.

“Where are we going?” Cas asks, and Dean turns away again.

“My room.” He pauses. “Unless you want to go to yours.”

“Anywhere is fine,” Cas answers honestly. He doesn’t know what to expect when they get there, or why Dean is leading him with such urgency and purpose, or anything else about anything, really, because _how is this happening_ — but it doesn’t matter.

_I want to marry him. And mate him. And anything else he’s willing to give me._

He grips Dean’s hand a little tighter and simply follows.

By the time Dean’s tugged him through an endless-feeling maze of halls and finally lead him up several flights of stairs, Cas is breathless for many reasons, a thousand questions burning on his lips, and only once they’re inside does Dean finally let go of him, firmly shutting and bolting the door behind them.

He turns, then, and for a moment, all he does is stare.

Cas looks back, mind drawing blank as he waits.

“You’re here,” Dean suddenly says, sagging back against the door. “Is your sister with you?”

Cas furrows his brow.

“No? She was preoccupied.” Cas hesitates. “Apparently she and Miss Talbot are in love.”

According to Susan, anyway, and at this point, Cas has decided he might as well just trust her judgment.

Dean’s brows lift.

“Miss Talbot,” he repeats. “Wow. That, uh. That’s really . . .”

He trails off, and Cas nods.

“Or Princess Isabela, as I understand it.”

Dean looks taken aback.

“You know? Your _sister_ knows?”

“Yes. Miss Talbot had said that was one of the reasons they couldn’t be together.”

Dean blinks.

“Right. Okay. I take it she changed her mind?”

“She did. Although — Anna had to ask.”

“Yeah? Is that, uh . . . is that why you . . .”

Cas lifts his brows, and Dean swallows.

“You came for me,” he finally says, giving Cas a searching look, and Cas clears his throat.

“I did.”

“How’d you even get here?”

He lifts his shoulders.

“Well, you taught me how to ride a horse, so . . . I rode one.”

Dean stares.

“You just — rode here? By yourself? Just — just like that?”

“Yes?” Cas agrees awkwardly. “I, um. I decided I was tired of waiting.”

Dean’s face falls.

“Oh. Uh. Fair. I probably wouldn’t trust me not to fuck it up, either.”

Cas hesitates.

“I . . . I did have doubts,” he admits. “But it wasn’t — it was less a lack of faith in your abilities than in your motivation.”

“What?”

Cas looks down.

“Which — in light of that, I didn’t tell you, before you left. What I wanted.” He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t expect you would be interested in giving any of it to me, even if you could. But I realized — you certainly wouldn’t, if I wasn’t even going to ask. So . . . I thought I would try.” He pauses, rueful. “Apparently, it’s what I do.”

Dean’s lips quirk, at that, though his brow is still knit.

“Okay,” he says slowly. “Okay, but — all you asked for was — was to be with me. Here. Which is what I was already going to ask for.”

“Ah.” Cas clears his throat. “Yes. But — you weren’t going to ask about children. Heirs, that is.”

“Children,” Dean interjects, gaze sharp. “And that kinda sounded like a bargaining chip.”

“It was meant to.” Cas pauses. “But — it is one of the things I wanted, that I thought, if you didn’t object — I could have.”

Dean inhales, straightening.

“You want that?”

“I told you, Dean,” he reminds him gently. “I want everything. However — those were the most important things. To be with you. To — to share a life with you.”

For a long moment, Dean says nothing, and Cas looks down, nerves rising once again.

“If you’re willing,” he adds quietly. “Previously, you seemed determined to have someone other than me, so—"

There’s a shuffling sound, and suddenly Dean is in front of him, reaching out, hands gentle as they clasp Cas’s face between them and tilt it up.

“Cas. I never said that.”

Cas swallows.

“You repeatedly told me you wouldn’t ask me to do that.”

“Because I wanted to make sure you knew you had a _choice_.”

“But I didn’t. That wasn’t an option.”

Dean tightens his grip.

“Well, _no_ , because usually you do love confessions and marriage proposals before you start asking someone to bear your goddamn children.”

“But none of those things—" Cas starts, and then he stops, blinking. “You said you wanted to marry me.”

Dean hesitates.

“I did,” he says cautiously. “I do.”

Cas just barely nods, stayed by Dean’s hands.

“And . . . we spent the morning in bed, after we decided we wanted to be together.”

Dean’s eyes soften.

“We did. It was a pretty nice morning.”

Cas shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. It’s irrelevant, at this point, if Dean really means to _marry_ him, to mate him, to let Cas be the one to share his children, the way it seems like he might be saying.

But— he _does_ want more. He wants _everything_ , and even if all those other things will be enough without it—

He still wants this, too.

“Do you . . .” he starts, and Dean lifts his brows, thumbs brushing over Cas’s cheeks as he crowds a little closer.

“Do I what?”

Dean is just — looking at him, eyes intent, expression open, hands so, _so_ gentle on Cas’s face, and Cas’s courage falters.

There is infinite, unmistakable _good_ , in this person, this beautiful, breathtakingly kind person, good that has changed Cas, changed his _fate,_ in so many wonderful, unexpected ways — good Cas has faith will do the same for countless others, as time goes on — and Cas thinks he is the luckiest person in the world, to have been sacrificed to Winchester.

Cas _thinks_ , at this point, to not love Dean is an impossibility.

But even if Cas thinks he might be worthy of love, thinks they all might be, thinks he might be worthy of whatever happiness he can manage to secure for himself—

Could he really be worthy of Dean’s?

Cas looks back, throat tight.

“Do you love me?”

Surprise flits across Dean’s face, and then—

He lets go.

There’s a long silence, after that, Dean speechless in a way rather suggestive of an answer Cas did not want to hear, realizes he was neither expecting or prepared for, and Cas’s face heats, stomach pitting with regret.

He feels pathetic, suddenly, wounded and exposed in a way that distantly makes him think of lying on the cellar floor, back on fire and blood hot where it ran down his sides, his father’s steps a hollow echo as they reascended the stairs without him.

His gaze drops.

“It’s just as well,” he says quietly. “If that’s not why you want me, I think you’re, um, less likely to change your mind.”

Or perhaps he’s more likely to, Cas thinks, but this must be the sort of awkwardness that was between Anna and Bela, and because Cas has learned to hate fighting with Dean, he’d just as soon ignore it altogether.

“Cas,” Dean finally says, and Cas forces himself to look up. He finds Dean staring back, gaze strangely fierce. “You came to the Hearings for me.”

Cas swallows, uncertain.

“I did.”

“And you — you asked my father if you could _have_ me.”

“Because I want you,” Cas manages, lost. “Very much. It seemed worth asking.”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“You asked the fucking _king_ if you could have the crown prince of his country.”

“I — I tried to make it reasonable?”

“You unreasonable _bastard_ ,” Dean breathes out, and his hands return to Cas’s face, warm and sure as he leans forward, resting his forehead against Cas’s. Cas goes cross-eyed, searching his face for some clearer meaning. “Of-fucking- _course_ I’m in love with you.”

Cas stills.

“You — you’re—“

“In love with you.” Dean tilts his head, kissing him, one hand brushing back his hair. “Really, really in love with you.

For a moment, all Cas can do is stand there, trying to reconcile the meaning of the words as Dean pulls back to look at him.

“You love me?” He blinks, still shocked, despite being the one to ask in the first place. “You do?”

One of Dean’s hands falls, settling firmly over Cas’s heart. Cas wonders if he can feel it quicken beneath his palm.

“You’re you,” Dean says simply, as if that is all the justification needed to make sense of a miracle. “Of course I love you, Cas. I’m always gonna.”

_Always._

He says it like it’s easy, like it’s obvious, when Cas knows just how hard and confusing life tends to be. He says it like he’s _sure,_ not the kind of sureness borne of stubborn hope, but the sureness borne of experience, of having no reason to expect anything different.

He says it like he _means_ it.

It’s as if something cracks in Cas’s chest, then, and he reaches up, covering Dean’s hand with his own, just to help try and hold it together.

“Alright,” he whispers, overwhelmed. “That, um. That’s good, too.”

Dean studies him for a moment.

“What about you?” he asks softly. “Do you know yet?”

“Know what?”

“If you love me. What kind you think it is, if you do.”

Cas blinks, giving him a lost look.

“I know. Don’t — don’t you?”

Dean just barely shakes his head.

“No. I don’t. I . . . I hope, sometimes, and you — you kinda treat me like you love me, but — I don’t know.”

“Oh.” Cas squeezes his hand more tightly. “I love you. I have — I have loved you for longer than I should have, perhaps. But I can’t help it. I love you a little more every day. And I think — it’s what makes me yours. What has almost always made me yours.”

Dean’s eyes are wide, body still as he looks back at Cas.

“I . . . I thought I told you people don’t—“

“And I told you you were naive.” Cas clears his throat. “I love you, and I give myself to you. I _chose_ you, Dean. And that — that is why I’m yours.”

Dean swallows.

“You want that? To — to be mine?”

Cas just looks at him.

“I could never be anyone else’s.”

There’s an endless-feeling pause, Dean’s eyes taking on a peculiar shine, and then—

“Son of a bitch,” he finally whispers. “Okay. You want to have me, Cas? Then have me.”

And then he surges forward and kisses him.

Cas has found, since meeting Dean, since falling in love with him — since being _loved_ by him, apparently — since living at Mills park, even, that actually, he may have a perfect body.

His body, so startled by Dean’s lips pressed to its that first night, after the festival, is infinitely teachable, such that now, it knows exactly how to angle itself, exactly how to hold on, exactly how to touch. Every time Dean drifts into its space, makes some kind of contact with it, however comprehensive or fleeting, Cas’s body responds in ways from which he reaps endless benefit.

His body allows him to work, the kind of work that satisfies him; it allows him to defend himself and, unexpectedly, to protect others. It can be taught to ride a horse, and with that knowledge, it enables him to go where he needs to to ask for what he wants.

And now, it allows him to _have_ it, is going to enable him to be at Dean’s side, without demanding any sacrifices from him, and while Cas has learned to be grateful for such a body, for such a _gift—_

For the first time in his life, he can find no flaw in it at all.

He wraps his apparently wonderful arms around Dean, purportedly good hands holding tight, and kisses Dean back with everything he has.

“Dean,” he whispers, when Dean shudders and breaks away for air, his own impossibly lovely hands fisted tight in Cas’s grey shirt. “Are we about to tumble?”

“Huh?” He licks his lips, brushing his nose against Cas’s. “Oh. I, uh, I thought we could. If you want.”

He tilts his head, then, clearly unconcerned, and starts mouthing along Cas’s jaw, feather-light as his lips draw over the faint stubble already coming in.

Anyway, it takes Cas a moment to answer, distracted by Dean’s mouth, soft and full as it trails all the way down his throat, all the way to the place where Dean could bite him, now, if he meant what he said about mating, if it’s really what he wants, and when he does finally manage to gather his bearings, it’s difficult to form the words.

“I’d like to.” He wonders if Dean can feel his pulse, thrumming fast beneath Dean’s lips as anticipation fills him. “But — I’d like to try — would it be making love, now?”

Dean pauses.

Then he takes a deep breath.

“Cas,” he murmurs, warm against Cas’s throat. “It’s never been anything else.”

And then he closes his teeth around the skin there, nothing like a bite, but something Cas swears feels almost like a _promise,_ and maybe it is, because they’ve been making love this whole time, a revelation that makes a gratifying, wonderful amount of sense to him, and Dean asked the _king_ for permission to mate Cas, to marry him, to _keep_ him, in the most permanent way Cas can conceive of, and that permission was unequivocally granted.

Cas wants everything, and because Dean, evidently, wants it all, too—

He’s going to get it.

It’s overwhelming, and suddenly, he can’t wait, hates every layer of clothing on Dean’s body as he realizes, in a shocking moment of clarity, what destructive force Susan had been talking about.

He clumsily wriggles his hands between them, scrambling for Dean’s buttons, fumbling his waistcoat open while Dean licks and nips at his throat, and when he gets to the small, tight buttons of the white shirt underneath, stubbornly nestled in their buttonholes—

“How — how difficult is it to have your buttons replaced?” he pants against Dean’s temple, and Dean freezes, teeth an aggravating tease against his skin.

“Huh?” he pulls back, and Cas swallows a noise of dismay as cool air touches the damp spot left behind. “Not hard? Why—"

“Sorry,” Cas interrupts frantically, and then he fists his hands in either side of Dean’s shirt and yanks. Dean stiffens, eyes going wide as the buttons fly, clicking against the floor wherever they land, and Cas barely spares them a thought before he tugs the ends of Dean’s shirt free.

“Fuck,” Dean chokes out, reaching for him, but Cas beats him to it, palms slipping greedily over Dean’s warm, solid flesh, deeply satisfying, but leaving him wanting nonetheless. He lets go reluctantly, knocking aside Dean’s desperate hands to undo his trouser ties, and after a beat, Dean moves to help him, harsh breaths mingling in the air between them as their hands brush together and by some collaborative miracle, send the trousers sliding down Dean’s legs.

He hastily shakes free of them and then crowds back in, grabbing hold of Cas’s jacket just as he kisses him again, hot and clumsy and _wanting_ in a way that sweetly steals Cas’s breath.

He could get to have this, have _Dean_ , for the rest of his entire life.

“None others,” he breathes out, helping to shrug out of the jacket so Dean can move on to his buttons. He’s very fond of the grey suit, but he thinks Dean could tear it to shreds and he wouldn’t mind it, just so long as it resulted in Dean’s body, bare and warm, pressed against his as soon as earthly possible. “Tell me you’ll never have any others — that you’ll be mine.”

Dean shudders, fingers fumbling the first button.

“I already told you that,” he mutters, kissing him as it finally slips free. “I promised. And believe it or not, Cas — I keep my promises.”

“You were going to have a noblewoman,” Cas insists, though he’s helpless but to kiss him back. “Or a princess.”

Dean shoves the waistcoat aside and steps back, eyes narrowed.

“I was going to do what I had to to make sure you never felt like your hand was forced, when it came to heirs. But _only_ if I had to, Cas. I was always hoping you’d want to be the one.”

“Well, I do,” Cas says evenly, and Dean nods.

“Then it’s just like I promised. None others. Not ever.” He crowds back in, eyes dark. “Just you.”

Cas is more foolish than he ever thought, but he’s still not completely without reason. He knows there are no guarantees, that things can always change, can always be lost, and this is no different.

But still — _still —_ he believes it.

“Just me,” he repeats, throat dry, and Dean reaches out, fingers closing over his cravat.

“All yours.” He tugs at it, Cas swaying forward when it fails to give. “For as long as you want me.”

It’s as if some other force takes hold of his body, _all yours_ on a heady loop inside his mind, and Dean barely manages to pull the cravat undone before Cas finds himself unable to contain himself, roughly pushing Dean’s hand aside and seizing him by the waist.

“Always,” he breathes out, and then he musters every ounce of strength in his perfect, flawless body to haul Dean into his arms and carry him to bed.

He deposits him with none of the gentleness Dean deserves, resolutely unfastening his shirt as Dean sprawls backward, staring up at Cas in shock, and the instant he’s wrestled free of the sleeves, he yanks at his trouser ties, shoving them down with his drawers in one efficient movement. Dean is scrambling upright, bracing himself on his palms, but as soon as Cas has shaken away his trousers and practically launched himself onto the bed, he pushes Dean back down.

Dean sucks in a breath, tongue darting out to wet his lips.

“Okay,” he says, blinking rapidly. “Wow. Hi. What — what can I do for you, Cas?”

Cas hesitates, a peculiar sense of urgency still struggling just beneath his skin.

“I don’t know. I want — you’ve said things, and I feel . . .”

He trails off, looking down at Dean, intent.

“Feel what?” Dean reaches up, hands settling over Cas’s waist, and Cas shivers, immediately dropping down, perching over Dean’s stomach. It’s better, Dean’s skin smooth and warm against his, but he still feels restless, some jarring blend of need and anxiousness and _determination_ at war within him.

“Just . . . ” he hesitates, and Dean bites his lip.

“Like the time you got drunk?”

Cas considers that.

“Yes. I want to — to make love. But I’m also . . .” He stops, unsure, and Dean squeezes slightly, smiling.

“Yeah?”

Cas swallows.

“I feel like I want to prove you’re mine. That you will be.”

The smile fades, Dean’s eyes seeming to darken.

“Ah.” He clears his throat, hands slipping down, thumbs brushing over Cas’s hips. “That, uh. That’s normal.”

“Normal,” Cas repeats, squinting.

“Yeah. You — you know, when you beat somebody up and go to jail, you wanna get laid afterward. And . . . when the guy you love says he loves you back, and that he wants to mate you — you get excited. You wanna . . . stake your claim.”

“Oh.” Cas studies him. “So — this is a common occurrence?”

Dean hesitates.

“It’s . . . consistent with my own experiences,” he eventually says, and Cas isn’t sure what exactly he’s trying to say with that, but he trusts Dean’s original point.

“So . . . I want to stake my claim.”

Dean shrugs, thumbs still stroking over him.

“Could be.”

Cas just looks at him for a moment, Dean flushed and strangely disheveled, though Cas has barely touched him.

“I do,” he decides. “I want to stake my claim.”

He watches Dean swallow, Adam’s apple bobbing, and Cas looks to the right of it, fascinated.

“Samandriel told me omegas bite, when they mate,” he adds quietly, gaze lingering a few seconds before it flicks back to Dean’s face. “Is that true?”

Dean lifts his brows.

“Of course. How else would you do it?”

Cas looks back at his throat.

“And . . . it’s like the bite an alpha gives. It leaves a mark.” He pauses. “It makes you mine.”

Dean’s stomach tenses underneath him.

“Yeah. That’s the idea.”

Cas falls silent, uncertain, and Dean takes a deep breath.

“We can wait on that, you know. You should probably think about it, make sure it’s, uh. What you really want.”

Cas tilts head.

“It is. I’ve thought of it plenty.” He watches Dean, thinks he sees a curious flicker of hope in his face. “It featured prominently in my daydreams, before Anna took me away.”

Dean swallows, lips parting.

“You . . . daydreamed about mating me?”

“I did. Often.” Cas smiles slightly. “It was a very pleasant thought.”

Dean’s lips quirk, though he looks a little stunned.

“That’s — a long time to think about it.”

“Perhaps.”

“But — you also told me you’d never mate.”

Cas lifts a brow.

“Because I didn’t think mating you would ever be an option.”

“Oh.” Dean blinks. “So . . . you never changed your mind? About wanting that?”

“Why would I?”

He huffs.

“A lot of reasons, but — the point is, you’ve wanted that for a while? That’s not, uh. Something I surprised you with, today? Or something that even happened ‘cause of all the stuff we’ve been doing?”

“Stuff?”

Dean colors.

“The — the sex. The lovemaking, I mean.”

“Oh. No. That’s not why.” Cas shrugs. “I’m not completely naive. I know that mating means being together, in the longterm, and I didn’t want to leave you.”

Dean makes a soft sound.

“Right. Right, that — I didn’t wanna let you go, either.” He clears his throat. “Then . . . maybe we could do that? Maybe? Normally, I — I’d say it was kinda soon, but — it sounds like you’ve wanted that for a while.”

Cas blinks.

“Do . . . what?”

Dean shrugs.

“Mate? You know. You could bite me.” He clears his throat. “And . . . I could — bite you? If you were ready for that?”

Cas’s lungs stutter.

“I’ve been ready for you to bite me since the first time you put your mouth on my neck, Dean,” he says. “It’s one of the most frustrating parts of having an orgasm. I never quite get what I want when it happens.”

Dean’s whole body pulls taut underneath him.

“Cas,” he chokes out. “I hope you mean that, because I don’t — I don’t know if I can do it again.”

“Do what a—"

“Not bite you. It — it gets harder and every time, especially when I can tell some part of you wants it.”

Cas stomach tightens.

“I do,” he says slowly. “And . . . you want to bite me.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Dean says simply, and Cas just looks at him for a moment.

Then he carefully leans down, pressing his lips to Dean, allowing himself a moment to enjoy the way one of Dean’s hands immediately cups the back of his neck, keeping him close, and then—

He gently disentangles himself, slipping off.

“Oh. Uh.” Dean starts to sit up, brow creasing. “Where — where’re you going?”

Cas turns away, a little self-conscious, but mostly anticipatory, for all the touches and kisses and the fullness and eventually Dean’s _teeth,_ claiming him, Dean’s skin caught between his own as Cas does the same in turn, and with a deep breath, he lowers himself forward, bracing his elbows against the bed and arching the way Dean had described, the way he did in his heats, forehead resting against Dean’s soft green duvet.

There’s a sharp intake of breath behind him, and he closes his eyes.

“Like this?” he whispers, taking comfort in Dean’s scent where it clings to the bedding. The air is cool against his back, daylight no doubt illuminating every last white line of scar tissue on his back as he bares it to Dean’s vision, and if this really is something alphas enjoy, if this is something _Dean_ usually enjoys, he hopes it doesn’t ruin it. “Am I doing it right?”

Dean audibly swallows.

“I . . . what?”

“Presenting.” Cas takes a deep breath, a little startled when a different thread of scent reaches him, a scent Cas knows from being in bed with Dean (or pantries, as the case may be), knows from Dean’s bare skin flush against his, Dean’s breath hot on his throat. “You said a lot of alphas liked to see it.”

No answer comes, and Cas tenses.

“Do you like it?”

“I do,” Dean says quickly, and Cas feels the mattress shift, a sudden warmth at his rear, the backs of his thighs, Dean’s calves brushing against his own as he settles behind him. “I — I like it a lot. Do you, though?”

Cas relaxes, turning his face, resting his cheek against the duvet instead.

“Yes. I think so.”

“Okay. Uh. If you change your mind—"

“I’ll tell you,” Cas finishes, smiling. “Will you touch me? I’m getting cold.”

There’s a brief pause, and then Dean takes a breath.

And then Cas feels his hands, smoothing over his back, up toward his shoulders, down across his biceps, and a moment later, Dean’s chest presses against it as he leans forward, the line of his body practically tracing Cas’s, solid and warm as it blankets him.

Cas can’t quite hold back a soft moan.

“Better?” Dean whispers, the word tickling against the back of Cas’s neck, and Cas shivers.

“Yes. Much.” He can feel Dean, hard against his posterior, and it sends a thrill coursing through him, his own penis thickening between his legs, Dean’s scent rich all around him. “Thank you.”

Dean huffs a laugh, and then drops a kiss below Cas’s neck, just between Cas’s shoulder blades, heedless of the scars.

“God, I love you,” he mumbles, left arm wrapping around Cas’s waist, and Cas’s breath catches. “I’m gonna try and make you as happy as you can stand, okay?”

“I don’t think it will take much effort,” he whispers, closing his eyes. “I didn’t ask, but — you’re giving me everything I wanted, anyway.”

Dean stills.

And then he shifts, turning his face against Cas’s shoulder and kissing his throat, right where he intends to bite him, later.

“Cas. You came all the way to Lawrence, by yourself, and asked my father if you could have me.”

“But I still didn’t—"

Dean nips at him, and Cas jerks, instinctively arching further, even as he tries to tilt his head.

“You asked to bear my children. You asked for a guarantee that we’d be together, and there wouldn’t be anybody else.”

“That’s not the same as—"

“It is.” Dean flicks his tongue against the spot, and Cas’s gut clenches, cold-hot washing over him as Dean presses back against his stomach. “It’s all the important things. It let me know that I could ask you, the way I wish I could have from the start. The way you deserved.”

Cas shakes his head.

“I don’t deserve this. I want it, very much, but I don’t deserve it.”

“You deserve everything, Cas,” Dean murmurs. “But what we deserve doesn’t really matter. What matters is what we want, and what we can have. And this — if we want it, we get it.”

***

He nibbles at Cas’s throat, hand slipping further down, and Cas braces himself, wondering how it can be so exciting, every time, how his body can be so utterly overtaken by it, like every nerve involved is brand new and untried, continually shocked by the pleasure it experiences when they do this.

He doesn’t bother holding back as Dean’s hand circles him, thumb slipping over the head of Cas’s penis, and Dean bears down against him a little harder, answering Cas’s groan with one of his own.

“I want all of it, for the record,” he whispers, stroking over him and sending tremors through Cas’s body, and Cas fists his hands in the blanket, pressing back against Dean’s weight. That familiar ache is building within, his opening growing slick, ready to ease Dean’s way, and he experiences another burst of gratitude for his body’s talents, its cooperation, allowing him all these marvelous things.

“Alright. Then — let’s have it,” he breathes out, and Dean kisses his neck one last time, then draws away, though he keeps touching Cas’s penis, slow, firm passes Cas could _almost_ complain about.

“Lookin’ forward to it, sweetheart,” Dean murmurs, and then he takes a deep breath. “How’re you doing? Are you comfortable?”

Cas hesitates.

“Mostly.”

“Mostly?” Dean echoes, hand pausing. “What do you need?”

Cas clears his throat.

“Is it possible . . . I think it would be more comfortable, if you gave me your fingers, too.”

There’s a stunned silence behind him, and he waits, neck hot.

Perhaps ‘comfortable’ was not the exact word he wanted, there.

But then Dean laughs, and a warm, calloused palm settles on Cas’s right buttock, lightly squeezing in that bizarrely satisfying way, and when Dean speaks next, his voice is warm.

“That’s good. I was planning on it.”

Cas relaxes, sighing as Dean’s other hand resumes its ministrations.

“Do you remember how I like it?” he mumbles, closing his eyes again, and the palm on his rear starts rubbing, drawing soft, pleasing circles over him.

“Well,” Dean starts, sounding amused. “It’s been a whole five days since I did this last, so I’m kinda fuzzy.”

Cas frowns, but then Dean’s hand shifts on his rear, fingers tucking in between him and deftly sliding over the place where he opens, wet beneath them, and he twitches, lungs sticking.

“But if I remember right,” Dean continues lowly. “You like more sooner.”

“I adjust quickly,” Cas manages, frustrated by the inert pressure against him. “I have a great body.”

Dean huffs a laugh, fingers rubbing over him, a match to the slow, steady rhythm of his hand, and Cas shudders.

“You really do. So, that. And . . . what else? I think — you said you liked the slide.”

“I do,” Cas agrees, trying to wriggle back for emphasis. “You said you did, as well.”

“I sure do. It, uh, it’s nice, ‘cause I like a lot of the things you like.”

Cas settles, curious.

“Which things?”

Dean hums, the tip of one finger catching at the edge of Cas, nearly sliding in before Dean lightens his touch and passes over him instead.

“Well, you said you liked it when I pushed in hard.” Dean pauses. “And fast.”

“I do,” Cas confirms, breathless as he subtly rocks backward. “Very much.”

“And that you didn’t like the empty part.”

“It aches. The full feeling is better.”

“See? I like giving you that, too. Love that,” Dean amends. “But that’s why slow’s kinda nice sometimes, too. You get to just, uh. Enjoy being close.”

“That does sound nice,” Cas acknowledges. “Is that what we’re going to do today?”

Dean pauses.

“Is that what you want to do?”

Cas hesitates.

“It — Dean, it’s difficult to answer these questions. To be honest, this — this feels like a lot of talking, and less of the, um. The touching, that I expected.”

“Oh,” Dean says, still gently rubbing away. “Sorry. Are you getting impatient?”

“Not at all,” Cas lies, then forces himself to add, “And if you’d prefer to just . . . lie close and converse, I’m amenable.”

He still has that restless, wanting feeling, is anxious to have Dean inside him, to feel his orgasm build and overtake him, to have Dean finally bite him, the way he craves, to be able to seal his mouth over Dean’s throat and claim him in as permanent a way as he can manage, but he’ll wait, if he has to.

Just as long as he knows it’s going to happen.

There’s a long pause, Dean’s rhythm slowing, and then he clears his throat.

“You are really, really good to me, Cas,” he says, unexpected and hardly relevant to the current proceedings. “You just — you tell me if I ever fail to be good back, okay?”

And before Cas can ask what Dean could possibly mean by that, one of his magnificent fingers slides forward, pushing into Cas with gratifying ease.

Cas hisses, instinctively rolling back.

“You’re the best,” he tells the bedding, overwhelmed by the first of those spectacular slides within. “No one’s ever been as good to me as you have.”

The finger pauses once it’s fully inside.

“That’s . . . kind of a low bar,” Dean points out, and Cas huffs.

“I have read dozens — perhaps even over a hundred — romantic novels,” Cas counters. “And you are vastly superior to the hero in every one.”

Dean twists his finger, smoothly drawing out, and Cas sucks in a breath.

“I don’t know. I kinda liked that navy captain guy.”

“N-navy captain guy?” Cas echoes, tightening as Dean slips the digit back inside.

“You know, the one where he rebels against his corrupt superiors to help the heroine protect free trade on the seven seas? She spent four years in prison to save her brother from piracy charges after he trusted the wrong people?”

Cas blinks, momentarily distracted from Dean’s gently thrusting finger.

“You read _Where the Sun Meets the Sea_? When?”

“Uh.” Dean pauses. “I . . . spent some time in your room. It looked like that one had gotten some rereads.”

“Yes, I found the heroine very inspiring, but why were you in my r-ah!”

“Feel good?” Dean asks quickly, stroking a little more firmly inside him, and Cas swallows a whimper.

“No,” he chokes out. “Try two.”

Dean laughs, a vaguely breathless quality to the delighted sound.

“Okay, if you think that’ll help,” he teases, and then he’s drawing out, tip briefly circling Cas’s opening before he slides it back in, pulling slightly.

The second finger joins it, thrusting shallowly for a few seconds as Cas goes tight around them, and when he relaxes, Dean slips them a little deeper.

“How’s that? Better?”

“Yes.” He takes a deep breath, shifting slightly. “I enjoy being touched while I’m like this.”

“Like what?”

“Uh. Presenting. It results in the, um, the — the pleasant kind of strain,” he adds, tensing a little as Dean’s fingers ease fully inside, marvelously thick, but frustratingly spare, in their way. “That feels very good, Dean. You’re wonderful at sex.”

Dean freezes, and Cas buries his grimace in the bedding, torn between pushing into Dean’s hand and trying to move against his fingers.

“Uh. Thank you.” Dean starts moving again. “You are, too, so you know.”

Cas’s grimace disappears.

“Oh. Thank you.”

He wishes he knew what he did that was wonderful, but at least Dean thinks so.

“It — it feels really good, when you touch me. And it makes me feel good, the way you respond when I touch you,” Dean adds, and Cas smiles, unable to help himself. “And — I was in your room ‘cause I missed you.”

It takes a moment for the meaning to register.

“Oh.”

“’Cause I — I loved you, and I couldn’t be with you. So I wore your nightgown and stayed in your room and read your books and worked in your garden, and everything else I could think of to — to keep a part of you with me.”

One of the things that makes Dean the _most_ wonderful at sex, Cas decides, is the things he says while it happens.

“I envy you,” Cas eventually manages to respond.

“What? How so?”

“I didn’t have anything.” Cas breathes in, rocking his hips a little. “I had few things of mine, never mind something of yours.”

“Oh.”

“I even — I wished you’d bedded me, before I left.”

“You didn’t even think you’d _like_ bedding.”

“But I thought it might have given me something of yours,” Cas points out quietly, still keeping to Dean’s slow, maddening rhythm, and after a beat, Dean inhales sharply.

“That’s a little fucked up,” he whispers.

“Anna thought so,” Cas admits. “Maybe it was.”

Dean spreads his fingers slightly, and Cas allows a soft sound of approval past his lips, appreciative of the focus, when even he is distracted by the conversation.

“I’m kinda fucked up, too,” Dean remarks, closing his fingers as they stroke back in. “I, uh. I already had the plan, that I had, to get them to let you go. But I ran away to have that rut, anyway.”

“Why?”

“Wasn’t ready yet,” Dean mumbles. “I just — you seemed okay. And I wanted more time.”

“Oh.” Cas swallows. “I was more than okay. You were being the version of yourself that I liked best. That I saw when you first came to get me, or when you’d forget to be suspicious of me.”

“Yeah? You like that version of me?”

“I do. He makes me very happy.” Cas sighs. “It’s just as well, if we’re both ‘fucked up.’ I frequently don’t understand you, but generally — I like to think of us as well-suited.”

Dean snorts.

“’Well-suited,’ my ass. You and I are _perfect_ for each other.” He draws out, rubbing just inside of Cas, and Cas’s stomach flutters for reasons that have nothing to do with the touch. “Can I give you three?”

“Please do,” Cas breathes out, anticipation flickering warmly within as he waits, Dean still lightly petting, and as always seems to be the case with Dean—

His patience is rewarded.

Cas quiets, after that, more conscious of the stretch, of the tension in his thighs as he moves into the touches, eager to adjust, to have Dean snug inside him and against him, making love to him in yet another new, surely incredible way. There’s undeniable merit to this position, to being filled, on his knees and arching forward like this, but the downside lies in the lack of contact, the difficulty of kisses, Dean forced to leave space for his hand to work.

“Are your hands getting tired?” Cas asks at some point, face hot where it rests against the bed, body no better off, the sweat pricking at his skin as he rocks between Dean’s hand and fingers in small, tight motions. They glide in and out with ease, pace faster than it was, but Dean hasn’t started spreading them yet, rhythm smooth and almost hypnotic as he presses inside again and again.

“A little,” he admits, voice strained, and Cas nods. “What about you? Are you sure you’re still comfortable?”

“I think so.” He’s starting to get frustrated, Dean’s touch inside and around him still pleasurable but beginning to trigger a sense of dissatisfaction, especially as he feels himself open more to Dean’s fingers. “Stretch me. I’m starting to want more. And I want you to be closer.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean breathes out, and then his fingers start to shift, a jolt of heat striking across Cas’s nerves as they pull apart, pushing out against him. “If we do this again — we might wanna do this part first. Before you, uh, present. Might make it easier on you.”

“Oh. Maybe.” Cas shifts his shoulders, tension in his body rising as it fails to quite get an answer to its growing demand. “I think we’ll do this again.”

“Yeah? Awesome,” Dean murmurs. “And — you know, the more we do this kind of thing, the faster this part goes.”

“Like round-two perks?”

Dean chuckles.

“Like round-two perks.”

“We should do it a lot, then,” Cas concludes, eyes shut tight as Dean’s fingers work more insistently inside him. Cas can feel his slick, leaking down his thighs, an unfortunate side effect of gravity in this position, but it’s a small price to pay for what it gets him.

“We’ll see,” Dean says, but Cas can hear the smile in his voice, and at last, he slowly pulls his fingers out, leaving Cas shaking as his body clutches at nothing.

“Hurry,” he mumbles, shifting, automatically trying to lift his rear, as if the action could somehow beckon Dean’s body forward to join it. “I dislike this part.”

Dean lets go of his penis, hand stroking over Cas’s back before the warmth behind Cas fades entirely and he feels Dean crawl away.

He tenses, uneasy.

“Dean?”

“One sec,” Dean mutters, and a moment later, Cas hears a drawer open and shut before the bed shifts slightly, signaling Dean’s return. There’s a papery rustle, and at last, realization dawns.

“Do you need that?”

“We haven’t really talked about how stuff is gonna work, so — yeah.” Dean briefly touches his hip. “We will, though. Just — for now, I just want you. That okay?”

Cas closes his eyes, relaxing into the bed.

“Yes.” He sighs. “But still — hurry.”

Dean laughs, and Cas listens patiently as he slips on the sheath. Not long after that, one of Dean’s hands settles on his hip, grasping firmly, and seconds later, Cas feels the tip of him, pressing up against Cas’s wet, aching opening and slowly nudging inside.

Cas’s stomach lurches in that inordinately pleasant way, skin tingling as heat rushes over it, and he swallows a plea for Dean to move faster.

They have time, after all. Dean isn’t going anywhere, not without him, and this time, when Dean pushing inside has brought Cas to that breathtaking moment at the end—

“Don’t forget to bite me,” he murmurs, unable to stop himself from wriggling slightly, and Dean grunts, abruptly slipping further in. “At the end.”

“Won’t,” Dean pants, hand squeezing his hip. “ _Couldn’t_. Gonna make you mine, make you come, and then I’m gonna turn you over and bare for you and you’re gonna make me yours. Sound good?”

Cas has learned to like surprises, but he also loves knowing what’s going to happen, especially when what’s going to happen is so very, very _good._

“Very,” he chokes out, squirming back. “More, Dean.”

Dean rolls his hips forward, a scant, magnificent slide within, and Cas moans, fingers twisting in the blanket beneath his head. It’s hard to speak after that, each short push forward coming faster but still unnecessarily slow, Cas’s thighs and back trembling as he pulses around every new inch Dean gives him until finally, _finally,_ Dean’s hips touch his posterior and he curves over Cas with a groan.

“Fuck, Cas,” he grits out, both hands on Cas’s hips now, fingers digging in as he makes some small, earth-shattering grinding motion forward, his breath hot where it puffs out between Cas’s shoulder blades. If Cas weren’t already pressed into the bed and clinging, he thinks he’d end up there, after that. “Feel so fucking good.”

“It does,” Cas agrees breathlessly. “Always. Move.”

Dean pulls out, just barely, and one hand releases him, landing in Cas’s hair a moment later, Dean’s palm warm where it traces his skull.

He sucks in a breath, jerking at the touch, unexpectedly pleasing to him, and Dean inhales sharply in response. His fingers tighten in Cas’s hair, that hand lightly pressing down as Dean abruptly rocks his hips forward, and a dry sob rises in Cas’s throat, sensation blinding him as he clenches around Dean, body spasming beneath him.

“Dean,” he gasps out, hand fumbling out from under himself, awkwardly reaching up to cover Dean’s, to hold it there. “Yes — yes, like that, please—"

Dean groans, withdrawing before thrusting in harder, Cas’s body jolting slightly with the motion, though their hands still carefully hold Cas’s head in place, and Cas arches more to compensate, belly pressing toward the bed.

“You look so good, Cas,” Dean mumbles, doing it again, and Cas shudders, pressing his face harder into the blanket, Dean’s scent all around him, Cas’s own arousal slyly threaded through. “Swear you — you have the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen in my life.”

A different kind of pleasure suffuses him, Cas’s already significant pride in his body increasing severalfold.

“That — that implies you haven’t seen yourself,” he manages, and Dean lets out a startled laugh, stilling halfway out. His hand gentles under Cas’s, thumb sweeping over his temple, and Cas shivers.

“Trust me, sweetheart. Yours is better.” Dean slides back in, ducking down, and Cas loves that, loves the way it feels to have Dean blanket him, warm at his back. “I should show you, sometime.”

“Show me?” he echoes, struggling to keep a thought, and finally lets his hand slip off of Dean’s, arm aching. “Show me what?”

“How gorgeous you are.” Dean’s other hand moves away from his hip, curving around, and Cas’s stomach jumps as Dean’s palm settles over it, heat coiling low within. “You asked, last time, about all the ways we could do this.”

Dean pauses, movements shortening as he firmly rocks into him.

“And I was thinking,” he continues. “Maybe we could use a mirror, sometime. And you could see yourself — see how good you look, when we do this.”

“H-how would we do it?” Cas asks, shoulders bunching, Dean’s hand frustratingly gentle as it pets over his hair. “I couldn’t see, like this.”

He hears Dean swallow.

“What if you put your palms up against it? And then I could just — press up behind you, and watch you watch yourself while I kissed your throat and fucked you until we both came. How — how does that sound?”

Cas pictures that, can practically feel the glass, cool under his palms, see his own eyes, wide as he watched Dean bite at his neck, the way he knows he’d ask him to, as he saw his body rock forward with every press of Dean inside it, and he doesn’t know what shocks him more — that Dean would come up with such a thing or that Cas would find the thought of it as thrilling as he does.

“Depraved,” he pants. “They told me how — how depraved you all were, in the capital.”

“’Course we are,” Dean counters, hand pressing back against Cas’s stomach, and that heat within it spikes. “Being depraved is fun.”

“So much fun,” Cas moans, rocking back a little harder, penis heavy and aching between his legs. “Touch me more. Harder. I need—"

Dean outright _drapes_ himself over Cas, then, one long line of heat at Cas’s back, like spooning if Cas were on his knees, and the change in angle causes his length to tug at Cas, slipping out slightly before he adjusts and thrusts back in.

“How’s that?” he whispers against Cas’s neck. “Am I too heavy?”

Cas would roll his eyes, if he weren’t so preoccupied with the heat and tension in his body, Dean thick and hard inside him, thighs pressed to Cas’s and chest firm against his back.

“I’m very strong, Dean,” Cas reminds him. “And — resilient, I think. I can take your weight with ease.”

Dean just kisses his neck, fingers carding through his hair.

“Perfect,” he murmurs, and then he leans into him, wonderfully heavy, Cas’s thighs straining with the added pressure, and rests his forehead against Cas’s neck.

The arm over Cas’s stomach tightens, and then—

Dean slides back, drawing out so far Cas’s breath hitches with the shock of sudden emptiness, and before he can recover himself, Dean thrusts back in, Cas’s whole body rocking forward with the motion, a soft moan tickling at his neck as Dean promptly retreats and does it again.

Cas clutches the blanket tighter, doing his best to roll into the next stroke, and the room falls quiet but for the harshness of their breaths, the quiet sounds of their pleasure, the slick, steady glide of Dean’s penis as the pace builds and builds, Cas delirious underneath him, head light and heart thudding painfully in his chest. He feels _covered,_ the hand in his hair back to gripping tight, just shy of painful, Dean’s elbow braced out to the side as he rocks to and fro, and Cas shuts his eyes and lets himself drown, mumbling encouragement as they move together and Dean mouths over his neck and shoulders, nipping and sucking at the skin there, a promise of what’s to come.

Cas wants it so _badly,_ has wanted it for so long, and Dean—

Dean is going to give it to him.

“Dean,” he breathes out, shaking with the strain of it, of being loved in this way. “I — soon. Don’t forget.”

Dean thrusts in a little harder, and then the arm around Cas’s waist moves, becomes a hand on his cock, firmly grasping in time with his strokes. Cas groans, head twisting, and the tug of Dean’s fingers sends sparks dancing down his spine.

“Good, Dean — good,” he gasps. “How — how will I know what to do?”

“You will,” Dean mumbles into the skin of his shoulders, lips soft. “I’ll bite you, and when I bare — you’ll know. Just follow your instincts.”

There’s a thrill in his gut, of anticipation, of nervousness, of an orgasm about to shatter all his senses, perhaps, but if Dean says he’ll know, Cas trusts it.

Dean presses down harder, Cas’s lungs struggling for air as Dean moves, impossibly hot inside him, and just as he feels the other part of Dean’s penis nudge against his opening, knot swelling, resisting the path, the way it always does toward the end, Dean’s thumb rubs over the head of Cas’s cock. That feeling starts to tip over inside him, and just as the rush of it begins to overwhelm him—

Dean pulls out, tugging Cas’s head back a little further, and seals his mouth over the skin at the base of his throat.

Cas gasps, arching almost painfully, close and desperate and the next time Dean pushes in—

He bites, _hard_ , intent unmistakable as Cas feels teeth break the skin, sharp and stinging and _glorious_ as pain and ecstasy ignite in his body. He thinks he might scream, tears pricking at his eyes as it washes over him in waves, body jerking helplessly underneath Dean’s, clenching tight around him and spilling its release on the blanket as he twists and whimpers and Dean keeps moving into him, and there’s a low growl, one Cas can feel in his own throat where Dean’s teeth are clamped tight around it, his hand still holding Cas’s head in place.

Cas yanks at the blanket, blood rushing in his ears, and Dean abruptly releases him, his tongue lapping at the bite and Cas twitching with every wet pass it makes, and before Cas’s vision has even cleared, before he’s even capable of words, Dean is sliding out and rolling him, Cas sprawling stiffly on his back and blinking up at him in a stupor.

Dean’s eyes are nearly black, face flushed and hair in sweaty disarray, gaze trained on Cas’s throat. He shudders, reaching for Cas’s thighs, pushing them apart and settling back between them, and a moment later, his chest presses flush to Cas’s as he pushes back inside.

Cas cries out, sparks erupting across his nerves as the hard, steady pace resumes, and Dean buries a groan in his shoulder, grip bruising over his thighs.

“Cas — Cas, can I knot you? Please?”

Cas has no idea what he means, but his neck aches in the best of ways, his penis somehow still hard where it rests against his stomach, and there’s an indescribable _warmth_ in his chest as he looks up at Dean.

“Of course,” he says hoarsely. Dean could do anything, right now, and Cas can’t imagine finding any sort of complaint. That warmth is spreading, Dean still filling him, moaning sweetly against his skin, and Cas’s jaw tenses, mouth feeling strange as he breathes in Dean’s scent. “Of course, Dean.”

Dean makes a choked noise, surging forward, kissing him as that swollen part of him presses against Cas’s opening, and Cas clings to his shoulders, instinctively spreading his legs wider. There’s a moment of strange resistance, jarring given how easy it’s been, Cas slick and open for him as they’ve moved, but then something gives and Dean jolts forward and Cas gasps against his mouth at the sudden fullness, opening drawing tight around it, clutching as he swears it _grows_ inside him and then—

“Now,” Dean chokes out, tearing away from him, head tipping to the side, and the smooth expanse of his throat is like a beacon in Cas’s shock. He freezes, just staring for a moment, as Dean grinds into him, and then—

A rough sound tears out of his throat. Cas surges upward, not thinking, rolling them again, and Dean’s penis tugs at his opening, somehow locked tight inside of him, infinitely satisfying to every sense he possesses, and the instant Dean is on his back, eyes shut and lips parted and throat still readily bared for him—

Cas follows his instincts. He falls forward onto his elbows, ducking his head, sure in his path, his teeth aching in his mouth, and the moment he has Dean’s skin secure between them—

He bites, hard.

Dean jerks. Even through the sheath, Cas can feel him spill, feel his knot pressing out against him, Dean clinging to his hips and bucking beneath him. Pleasure whites out Cas’s vision, salt and copper on his tongue — his, his, _his —_ Dean still twitching inside of him, and with a triumphant growl—

He comes between them once again.

“I think we might be stuck,” Cas rasps, feebly stroking through Dean’s hair, Dean frantically licking at the bite on his neck while Cas simply buries his face in the blanket beside Dean’s head and lets him, soothed by the attention, a languid sort of joy simmering in his blood.

“Stuck?” Dean mumbles, hands stroking over Cas’s back, his rear and thighs, touch indiscriminate as they roam Cas’s body, and Cas shifts slightly.

It elicits a sharp hiss, Dean’s hips rolling up, and to Cas’s surprise, he swears he feels something, deep within him, almost like—

“Are you still coming?” he asks, a frisson of heat rolling through him, though he’s spent himself twice.

(If he’s being honest, he’s a little envious.)

“Kinda,” Dean says weakly. “That’s a thing, with knotting.”

Cas turns his face slightly, kissing Dean’s temple, tempted to try rocking his hips, to feel that tug at his opening again, Dean mysteriously locked inside.

“Is that why we’re stuck? Your knot?”

“Yeah. It’s not permanent, though.”

Cas smiles, amused.

“Somehow I don’t think you would have asked to do it if it were permanent.”

Dean pinches his rear, then, and Cas jerks, startled, Dean shuddering along with him.

“Fuck,” he moans. “And — I don’t know, Cas, you — you have some really weird ideas about things sometimes.”

***

“Sometimes,” Cas agrees, discreetly sniffing him. He can scent himself on Dean, always a wonderful combination, and there’s something else there, too, a distinct, unfamiliar note that nonetheless satisfies something deep within.

He pulls back slightly, wanting to see the mark he’s left, and Dean makes a soft, unhappy sound.

“Not done,” he protests. “Come back.”

“In a moment. I want to see where I — claimed you.”

Dean quiets.

Then he sighs and tilts his head, and Cas peers at the mark, fascination and a profound sort of glee filling him as he reaches out, brushing against it.

“Did I do it right?”

Dean lifts his brows, slanting a look at him.

“Yeah.” He hesitates. “Can’t you feel it?”

“I feel a lot of things, right now,” Cas admits. “Very happy. But also — content. The two are different.”

“Yeah?”

“Satisfaction, as well,” Cas adds absently, struck by the way his mark looks on Dean’s neck, sure to scar. It will be covered by a collar and cravat, most of the time, but Cas doesn’t dislike the idea of being the only one who gets to see it. “And . . . very in love with you. Can I lick you?”

Dean blinks.

“Uh. I — sure. Anytime you want.”

“I don’t think others would appreciate that,” Cas muses, and Dean just laughs, eyes crinkling as Cas ducks his head and brushes his tongue over the bite. Dean’s hand settles in his hair, cupping the back of his head, and Cas hums, gently lapping over the precious wound, hoping it does for Dean what it did for him.

“Perfect,” he mumbles, thumb stroking over Cas’s hair, and Cas pauses, taking a deep breath, hungry for that odd new thread of scent on Dean.

“Thank you,” he whispers, then points out, “You smell different.”

Dean stills.

“Yeah?”

“It’s faint. Nothing’s changed, just — there’s something new.”

Dean swallows, and Cas can just barely feel it, skin grazing his lips with the motion.

“Do you . . . do you like it?”

“Very much.” Cas sniffs. “It’s difficult to describe, but — it pleases me. You smell right.”

“Ah.” Dean licks his lips. “That, uh. That means it took.”

Cas pulls away, curious, and finds the color creeping back into Dean’s cheeks, though they’ve settled down from the orgasms.

“What did?”

“The, uh. The bite. When people scent me, when they scent that — they’ll know I’m somebody’s mate.”

“I thought that only happened to omegas,” Cas protests, surprised, and Dean huffs.

“Because you come from a town full of assholes and you have weird ideas,” he mutters, shaking his head slightly, then adds, “We’re _mates_ , Cas. Both of us.”

Cas studies him for a moment.

“I’m yours, and . . . you’re mine, too.”

“All the ways we can be,” Dean says softly, and Cas nods, ducking his chin to kiss Dean’s throat one last time.

Then he shifts, baring his own.

“You may resume,” he murmurs, and with a quiet laugh, Dean turns, mouth back on him, gentle in its focused attention.

Cas simply closes his eyes and lets him, and more than ever—

He feels loved.

It’s cold out, and despite the fact that Dean’s bed is huge and warm and full of pillows, not to mention close to a roaring fire — all circumstances that point to ‘really fucking comfortable’ — Cas insists on going to see his garden.

And as much as Dean’s in a sort of blissed-out, post-mating fog, even he has enough sense to try and talk Cas out of it — something along the lines of, ‘it’s dormant, it’ll still be there tomorrow, and also it’s super fucking cold out, no really, why don’t we stay in bed and cuddle while I admire that awesome bite I left on you instead’ — but Cas starts frowning at him, and suddenly Dean finds himself pointing out that _actually_ , they should just have dinner out there, awesome idea, and really, what’s a little bit of cold when you have a mate to keep you warm?

Nothing, apparently. Cas puts on Dean’s favorite pilfered nightgown, throws one of Dean’s enormous long winter dusters over it, and once Dean’s reluctantly donned some similar mishmash of layers, they gather up the thick spare blanket and head downstairs.

Cas comes to a stop as they approach, just looking at it, and Dean suddenly feels self-conscious, aware of what it must look like, compared to when Cas left.

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “I — I make sure it’s taken care of, I swear, but it’s Winter, so it — it looks kinda dead. But it’s not, I promise.”

Cas is quiet for a moment, and then he smiles, eyes warm when they meet Dean’s.

“I know. Spring will come,” he adds. “And it will be beautiful. I can wait.”

The late afternoon sun is warmer than Dean expected, and they wrap up together on the bench, surprisingly comfortable. It helps that Cas smells happy, smells like _Dean_ — smells like _his_ — and as much as Dean enjoys the meal outside, the experience both comfortingly familiar and thrillingly new, it’s a relief to go back in and push his duster off Cas’s shoulders, tucking him into bed once more.

They don’t leave again until morning; or rather, _Dean_ leaves in the morning, loath to do it, and certainly, Cas tries to talk him out of it — but the council only meets for two more days before Christmas, and while they’re talking about requests and other such business—

He made a not-quite-promise regarding a certain bookshop, and he wants to see it through.

It’s a long, mostly boring day, although it feels like a win, overall, even though George tries to push back on the bookshop since he couldn’t on the mating. Tara, fortunately, is more concerned with finances than grudges, and even if it _wasn’t_ technically a promise—

By the time they close the meeting, Dean’s satisfied that he’ll get to keep it.

“Be nice to do something different this year,” John muses, not quite dismissing Dean even though he _has_ to be able to smell that he’s freshly mated and if anything, he should have been surprised when Dean showed up in the first place; at the very least , he must know Dean was ready to go back to Cas _hours_ ago. “What do you think, Bobby? Feel like taking a hunting trip down by your place?”

Bobby looks surprised, but he perks up.

“Gonna have to talk to Ellen and Jo, but — I wouldn’t complain.”

John raises a brow at Dean.

“How about you, son? We’ll have to open Solstice festivities, but after that — might be a nice change to the routine.” He pauses. “Maybe your new mate has some family he’d like to see, if we’ll be there anyway.”

Dean’s new mate _does_ have some family there, who he _absolutely_ would like to see, and even though the decision was completely out of Dean’s hands—

He gets rewarded for it anyway.

Despite the almost surreal happiness of the last few days, Cas feels . . .

Unsettled, on the drive back to Mills Park.

All he’s wanted to do, for days, has been lie in bed and scent Dean, wallowing in the bright, rapturous sort of joy that seems to have overtaken his being, but even if he accounts for the fact that the early morning meant no time for orgasms and only a little time for kisses, it doesn’t explain the abrupt restlessness he feels.

Perhaps it’s a lack of sleep.

Anyway, he spends the first half of the trip dozing against Dean’s shoulder, taking comfort in his scent, but every time he jerks awake, he feels vaguely agitated by it, even as his first impulse is to burrow in closer.

He finds Dean already scenting him, one of the times, and Dean blinks sheepishly at him once he realizes he’s been caught.

“Sorry. Just, uh. You smell really nice today.”

Cas blinks back, eyes sticking on Dean’s mouth as he wonders if a body just becomes accustomed to frequent intimate gratification, and if there’s a sudden cease in activity, it has some sort of negative reaction where it’s tired and cranky and — come to think of it — now that the afternoon sun has begun to stream in through the windows, somewhat _overwarm._

Sam and Charlie join them in their carriage after lunch, beaming proudly for some reason, and Cas continues snacking on tiny leftover sandwiches, less tired and more uncomfortable than ever. The company is a pleasant distraction (and he certainly enjoys watching Dean, laughing at jokes Charlie tells, green eyes bright with mirth and crinkling handsomely at the corners), but they return to their own carriage at the next break, Charlie whispering inaudibly to Dean before her departure.

Cas frowns.

He hates it when people whisper secretively around him.

“What did Charlie say?” he asks, when they’re alone once again, and Dean practically flinches, color high when he turns to look at Cas.

“Uh.” He swallows, cravat twitching over his throat, and Cas absently reaches for it.

“You shouldn’t wear these when you don’t have to,” he points out. “They’re . . . fussy.”

Dean bites his lip.

“Okay. I’ll, uh. I’ll try not to.” He hesitates, throat twitching under Cas’s thumb as it strokes over the skin above the cloth. “Can I — ask you a question?”

“Of course,” Cas says, glancing up. “What?”

“When . . . when’s your next heat?”

Cas blinks.

“Oh.” He looks at his hand on Dean’s cravat, as if seeing it for the first time. “Of course. It’s a little early, but — that would explain my troubles, today.”

Dean looks embarrassed.

“Mating can do that,” he mumbles. “Sorry I didn’t figure it out sooner.”

“What does mating have to do with it?” Cas asks, surprised, and somehow, Dean turns redder.

“Uh. You know. When you have a successful mating, sometimes . . .” He trails off, coughing. “It, uh. It’s fifty-fifty on my rut, though. Might’ve had one too recently. We’ll see.”

Cas experiences a brief flash of disappointment — a rut would involve extensive bedding, after all — but then, with the exception of this morning, there’s been extensive bedding, anyway, and he supposes it isn’t too great a loss.

“Will you stay with me?”

Dean looks startled.

“What?”

“You’re — my alpha,” Cas says, pleased by the feel of the words. “You can provide me relief, in a heat. Will you?”

Dean looks torn between amusement and disbelief.

“Cas. Of course. I’m your _mate._ I’d never make you go through a heat by yourself, not unless I had to. Or you wanted me to.”

“Oh.” Cas nods, leaning into him a little more. “I look forward to it, then.”

Dean huffs and kisses him, the sort of kiss that simultaneously appeases and incites the itch beneath his skin, and to Cas’s disappointment, remains firm on his stance of ‘no sex in a moving carriage.’

He’s less firm, the closer they get to Mills Park and the more Cas seems to struggle. The intensity of Cas’s heat has increased rather dramatically, Dean’s apparent reaction to it helping not at all, and although Dean keeps repeating things under his breath about ‘safety’ and ‘rude to the driver’ and ‘just wait a couple more hours,’ by the time Cas is breathlessly nosing at his neck and complaining of wet drawers, Dean seems to run out of things to say.

Cas spends the last half hour of the trip in his lap, squirming in dissatisfaction and helplessly baring his throat while Dean mouths hungrily over his neck, hands squeezing at his rear in a way that is both intensely pleasurable and intensely _frustrating_. He has some vague awareness of Dean tugging him out of the carriage, of lurching forward into Dean’s arms, and when they stumble through the door, Cas’s hands already tucked inside his shirt and Dean’s mouth hot against his, he’s distantly aware of company, the light of the foyer irritatingly bright as Dean has the nerve to pull away.

“You’re both back!” he thinks he hears someone exclaim, but Dean’s neck is warm and rich with scent, Cas’s claim an unmistakable thread throughout, and Cas licks at it hungrily while he waits, Dean shuddering in his arms.

“Y-yeah,” Dean says for some reason, and Cas makes a disgruntled sound, rolling his hips in frustration. Dean said something about going straight to bed, Cas thought, but they’re still just _standing_ here. “Wanted — wanted to tell you all in person.”

“Tell us what?” she asks, and Cas slips a hand free of Dean’s shirt, pointedly pushing it through his hair, trying to tug him back for a kiss.

“Later,” Dean gasps out. At last, he staggers toward the stairs, and when Cas fails to correctly ascend the first step, Dean groans and picks him up.

So Cas wraps his legs around him, some wonderfully clever instinct of his body’s, and then-

Up the stairs to bed they go.

With the evening comes a little greater clarity, Cas somewhat appalled by all the demands he’s made over the last several hours, and despite the lingering ache and desperation, Cas forces himself to be reasonable.

Dean is sleeping soundly beside him, face soft but unmistakably tired, and much as Cas understands now, what all of Anna’s friends had been talking about, Dean is still not here for him to _use._

Resigned to being considerate, Cas forces himself to pull away, to ignore the heat that rolls through his tired muscles with the motion, body hopeful, and opens the nightstand drawer.

At first, he has no idea how to begin. The finest effort he can remember making at such an endeavor was chopping wood (which is to say, not very fine at all), but the shopgirl who sold the knife to him seemed confident in its suitability, and once Cas gets through the first half hour of awkward cuts, he finds a pleasant sort of rhythm.

It’s nothing compared to being knotted, Dean’s teeth teasing at his prior handiwork, but it is strangely soothing, Dean’s sleepy scent rising up beside him, and Cas decides this is the true purpose of the woodcarving.

It’s not a substitute, for the help of a mate; instead, it is a supplementary effort, an omega’s sacrifice to ensure their mate’s rest and comfort through the arduous days of heat, and that—

That, Cas can readily support.

Still, when Dean wakes up an hour later, rolling over with a yawn and looking up to see Cas there, dowel and carving knife in hand—

He doesn’t seem as appreciative as Cas expected.

(Apparently, that was not what the dowel was for.)

(Cas thinks everyone who’s failed to appropriately furnish him with valuable information deserves what they get.)

Cas’s heat breaks in the early hours of Christmas morning, to his relief, though it’s the nicest one he’s ever experienced, by _far._

“Thank you all for not enforcing guest curfew,” he says, when he and Dean come down for breakfast, and silence falls across the table.

After a beat, Anna sighs, and half the room erupts into giggles.

They all pack into the parlor for most of the day, though Dean and Cas are due at the Singer Estate for Christmas dinner and time with Dean’s family. Cas receives a dizzying amount of congratulations and hugs when he awkwardly announces that they’ve mated — something that seems to surprise no one — and that the king has given them permission to marry — something that very nearly provokes a _riot,_ albeit a very happy seeming one.

His sister hugs him the tightest.

“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” she whispers, and he knows she’s not just talking about his own news.

Before they leave, Dean asks if Billie has a moment, and at the puzzle table, Max perks up, quickly slipping out of her chair and coming to hover.

Billie gives them both a wary look, then graciously nods.

“Very well. What would you like to discuss?”

“Well — I assume you know about Cooke’s son?”

She’s quiet for a moment, impassive, and then nods.

“I understand he plans to sell.”

“He does,” Dean agrees. “We think it’d be a good investment for us.”

Her eyes narrow slightly.

“I’m sure.” She pauses. “I’m not sure what it has to do with me, though.”

“Well — Max seemed to think you’d be interested in running it.”

Billie blinks, and then her head turns, eyes finding Max’s, and though Billie can be difficult to read, Cas is fairly certain he recognizes surprise.

Max just looks back, all the naive hope of youth shining in her face, and for once—

Cas thinks that perhaps it’s not _entirely_ naive.

Billie’s expression smoothes.

“I see. Well — I might be.”

Dean nods.

“We’ve put together a proposal, if you want to take a look.”

“Of course. I look forward to seeing it.” She pauses, then adds, “I expect time to look over the contracts, as well.”

Max falters, alarm flitting through her face.

“Billie,” she interjects quietly. “Shouldn’t you just—"

Billie just looks amused.

“This isn’t generosity, Max. Cooke’s will end up in someone’s hands, and there are far worse pairs than mine. His _highness_ might be sympathetic, but his council stands to profit — or else they wouldn’t be doing it.” She tilts her head, eyes warm. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, either way.”

Max still looks uneasy, and Dean grins, patting her shoulder.

“She’s got a point, kid. People with her qualifications are kinda thin on the ground. But it’s a good deal for her. It’s a good deal for _us_ , sure, but — for you, too,” he adds, looking back to Billie. “And we’re open to negotiation, if you look things over and there’s something you don’t like.”

“Business,” Billie concludes dryly, still smiling. “Don’t worry, your highness. _That,_ I understand well. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

Reassured, Max settles, and once Dean’s passed over the documents, the pair wish everyone a merry Christmas and depart for the Singer estate.

(Cas sees Billie hug her, before he leaves, and though he doubts this is what Billie was thinking of, when she told him Max might surprise them — he’s glad of it, anyway.)

They stay in Sioux Falls through the New Year; King John insists they all take this River Tour everyone seems to like so much, and all four of them are surprised to find it’s just as nice as they lied about it being.

Charlie insists the king _knows,_ and has always known, but Dean is just as vehement that he couldn’t _possibly._

“Your father seems very clever,” Cas points out, somewhat in charity with the man at this point in time. “Is it so unlikely?”

“Why would he have let me come out here, if he knew?” Dean protests, and Cas frowns.

“I admit, allowing the tradition to continue was an oversight, but — he seems to behave fairly reasonably, when pressed.” Cas blinks, struck by sudden realization. “Oh. I see.”

Dean scowls.

“What? What do you see?”

Cas just smiles and takes his hand, turning back to the river.

“Nothing. Anyway — does it matter?”

Sam doesn’t think so, and after a moment, neither does Charlie, and even if Dean sulks for a few minutes afterward—

They all enjoy the tour, very much.

The day before they leave, Miss Talbot — or Princess Isabela, Cas supposes — returns to Mills Park.

She casually strolls into the parlor, makes lengthy small talk with every individual present, Anna growing increasingly agitated all the while, and just when he’s about to discreetly ask if there’s been a falling out, Miss Talbot finally saunters up to the settee, looking almost pained.

“A word, Anna?”

Anna narrows her eyes.

“A word,” she repeats, and Miss Talbot sighs.

“I suppose after last time, you’re not about to let me have it in private, are you?”

Anna lifts a shoulder.

“Turnabout,” she says apologetically, though she doesn’t really look it, and Miss Talbot’s lips twitch.

Then she nods.

“I have a letter of exception and a license from my brother. Without going into unnecessary or redundant sentiment—"

“A _license_ —" Anna repeats, looking incredulous. “As in—"

“Yes, one of those.” Miss Talbot shrugs. “If you think I have a use for it.”

Cas looks on, confused, although Dean’s jaw drops beside him.

Anna just stares for a moment.

“So — you — you’re asking me to _marry_ you?”

Miss Talbot rolls her eyes.

“Well, technically, you offered first. I’m simply giving you the means to follow through, as you are apparently so fond of doing.”

For a moment, Anna’s speechless.

Then she chokes out a laugh and reaches for Miss Talbot’s hand, twining their fingers together.

“I never said anything about marriage.”

“You said, and I quote, ‘something more.’ It was implied.”

“I didn’t realize I’d implied such a thing,” Anna says dryly. “Given that it wasn’t even _legal._ ”

“Yes, well. Let’s just say my brother owes me a rather large favor.”

Dean makes a strange sound next to him, eyes wide, and Miss Talbot turns slightly, arching a brow.

“Something you want to say, your highness?”

“Uh.” Dean blinks. “No? No, I — I’m good. Congratulations.”

She smirks.

“Likewise.” She pauses, looking back to Anna. “I assume you stand by it, then.”

Anna bites her lip.

“You assume a lot of things.”

“Not half as many as you do,” Miss Talbot says cheerfully. “Though I _did_ assume I could stay here at Mills Park, this time.”

Anna huffs a laugh, rising from the settee, though she doesn’t let go of Miss Talbot’s hand.

“Fine. You’ve assumed correctly — on both counts.”

And then, she very nicely offers to show Miss Talbot to her room.

They arrange for Cas’s things to be sent to the castle, before they leave, though he’s assured he’ll always have a space at Mills Park. It’s not difficult to pack; he hasn’t acquired much, since arriving, and his things from the castle remain neatly folded in the trunk they came in.

“You seriously never unpacked?” Dean asks, helping him gather what little’s in the armoire, and Cas pauses, giving the trunk a contemplative look.

“It hurt, when you tried to send me all my things,” he finally says. “It felt like being told I couldn’t come back.”

Dean looks at him, startled.

“No? No, I just — wanted you to have what was yours.”

“And I was glad, once I got it, but . . .” Cas shrugs. “I think — I was still hoping I would go back.”

Dean swallows.

“I was hoping you would, too,” he says. “Someday. That you’d decide you — you wanted to be there.”

Cas considers that, for a moment, a little astounded by it all, Dean coming to him here, again and again and again.

Waiting for him, if somewhat unnecessarily.

Then he smiles.

“Well,” he says, moving closer, and Dean smiles back, eyes curious. “We got what we wanted.”

Dean softens.

“Yeah. We did.”

Cas nods, reaching out, touching his face.

“What we both wanted.”

Dean laughs.

“Yeah.”

“That’s important.”

“It really is,” Dean agrees, crowding a little closer, and Cas nods.

“Thank you for wanting the same things I did.”

Dean licks his lips.

“Thanks for asking for them. I know it, uh. It wasn’t easy.”

“It wasn’t difficult,” Cas admits. “Mostly, it was frightening.”

“Yeah?”

Cas nods.

“But it was worth it,” he adds, in case it wasn’t clear.

And then, because it was worth it, because he ended up with the answer he wanted instead of the answer he was expecting, because he’s taking his things and going _home_ with Dean—

He decides what little packing he has can wait a moment.

He leans in for a kiss, and Dean—

Dean meets him halfway.

In the end, Dean doesn’t have an heir by the time he’s twenty-six. George is vexed, given that the pair purportedly have sex all over the castle, but Dean’s days of worrying about what the council will do are mostly behind him, and anyway, the rest of the councilmembers are fairly confident it will happen _eventually._

(Besides, if they _do_ have sex all over the castle, it’s Cas’s fault. _Dean’s_ always happy with a nice, cozy bed nest, but Cas wants to get fucked against walls and on desks and terrace balustrades and even in the armory while training happens fifty yards away, Dean’s hand over his mouth and his teeth sunk into Cas’s shoulder to muffle his own sounds, because Cas absolutely _is_ a fiend and if Dean’s being _totally_ honest—

Well, he’s actually never far behind.)

(God, he loves Cas.)

They wed on May Day. Cas inexplicably wants to wear his dress from the Drive, although Pamela talks him into letting her add a fifteen foot train covered in silk flowers and some massive, head-eating veil dotted with the tiniest of pearls, not to mention a many-layered underskirt, for ‘wedding-worthy volume.’

“Look at me the right way, this time,” Cas warns him, tangled up together the night before, and he’s not sure what exactly Cas means by it, but when Cas appears at the end of the miles-long-seeming aisle—

Dean loses sense and time, for a moment.

Anyway, he assumes he must do it right, because _Cas_ —

Cas kisses him as soon as he’s within arms reach, before the priest can even start the ceremony.

(In the front row on the left, all clad in beautifully-tailored, unexpectedly becoming dresses, Cas’s fellow dockworkers cheer.)

Dean drives him through town afterward, the way his father drove his mother, and this time, he holds Cas’s hand. No one jeers. There are celebrations in the streets, and as they pass, the people throw flowers, because rumor has it, the future queen of Winchester has a fondness.

Cas cries when they get back to the castle. It’s an alarming experience for Dean, despite his inability to scent any actual distress, because he kind of feels like throwing your new husband down on the bed and sobbing into the front of his captain’s uniform isn’t exactly the wedding-day happy-tears he’s heard about (and may, possibly, depending on who you ask, have shed himself), especially when Cas kisses him with the sort of desperation Dean would expect from a man clinging to the edge of a volcano.

“I love you,” Cas chokes out against him. “Getting the choice to be yours is — the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

Dean’s chest and throat feel all tight and funny, but he does his best to hold Cas in return, to project some kind of calm for him to hang onto.

“Like I’ve said, Cas — that, uh. That’s a pretty low b—"

“Be quiet, Dean,” Cas breathes out, and then he kisses him silent.

They don’t quite make it out of their wedding clothes, the first time; Dean can scent Cas better than ever, since they mated, eagerly takes his cues from every shift and spike he catches, and even though it takes him what feels like a full twenty minutes to fight through all the added underlayers to Cas’s skirts, uncertain that he’ll ever find his way out once he’s in there, he can tell from beneath the canopy of white and sky blue frills that Cas is unusually excited by the effort.

By the time he struggles free, face a mess and head light from heat and lack of oxygen, Cas is more _determined_ than desperate. He barely undoes Dean’s trousers and tugs down the front of his shorts before he’s sinking down around him, ruthlessly stripping off his own long white gloves and telling Dean his shoulders look very nice in his uniform before he plants his hands against them and rides Dean for all he’s worth.

Neither of them last very long, but neither of them really care, either, because there’s still the rest of the night to bare themselves and take it slow — because for once, real life is like the novels, and even if, hypothetically, they waste a wedding night on frenzied, haphazard lovemaking in various phases of undress, interspersed with giddy, exhausted snuggling—

Well, there’s still the rest of their lives, isn’t there?

Anyway, they’re left to their own devices for a week before they reappear for a reception. Max shyly presents them with a printing of her illustrated novel, the Scythe that’s come to represent Cooke’s old place, now just The Literary Emporium, stamped neatly on the spine.

The King, for his part, waves a hand, and to Dean’s bewilderment, a footman ushers in a beautiful chestnut foal. Well-trained to recognize good horseflesh from bad, he can appreciate the value of the gift, but of all the things he’d expect as a wedding present from his father—

A horse was not one of them.

Before Dean can gamely express his gratitude, anyway, John lifts his glass of wine, a peculiar glint in his eye.

“For your heir.” He pauses. “Thought you could name her Mary. After your mother.”

Sam and Charlie both choke on their cake, and while Dean remembers saying _something_ in response _,_ face on fire, he mostly just remembers praying for the moment to be over.

A part of Dean is afraid, getting married. It’s not something he ever consciously thought through, nor is it a subject he ever paid a lot of attention to, because it was just something people _did_ , and even though he’s always thought his thing with Cas went beyond stuff like bites and weddings . . . a part of him worries it still changes things.

Of course, it’s _Cas,_ and while Dean’s not stupid, senses that sometimes Cas maybe gets scared, too — can tell that the more steps they take forward, the more content and at ease Cas gets — with Cas, the dressings don’t really matter. They settle back into their routine, once the fuss is over; Cas comes to training with him two days a week, and Dean discovers that for Cas, trusting a man as far as he can throw him is actually saying a lot, and while he was mostly just trying to get Cas’s blood running hot, that morning at Mills Park—

He clearly knew himself better than he thought.

(They don’t make it outside with much time to garden, those days.)

Cas has tea and lunch with Sam and Charlie everywhere but his room, and Dean never worries about missing him on outings, anymore, Cas always there to catch his eye, to share a smile, even when Charlie takes perverse pleasure in linking arms with him before Dean gets a chance.

Dean’s okay with it, though. Cas is there, on walks through town, and he’s there, all of them at dinner together; he’s there, playing games and conspiring with Dean’s friends-briefly-turned-enemies, and they still take long rides through the forest and share picnics, when the weather’s nice.

He’s definitely there when it’s time to return to their room, even if Dean has to wait on him sometimes, Cas unsurprisingly popular company when he’s not restricted to a room in a guarded corridor. There are nights, here and there, Cas away at Mills Park and Dean reluctantly committed to his obligations at the castle, when Dean puts on a soft white cotton nightgown he hopes he never has to wrap his dead horse Mary in, a much more accurate portrait of Cas on the pillow beside him, but they’re few and far between and when Cas comes back and looks at him—

He always looks like he’s coming home.

(Dean hopes, with everything he is, that that never changes.)

He gets to celebrate Cas’s birthday for the first time, that September. Too many grape schnapps and maybe something else has him feeling drunk and sentimental, and while he definitely doesn’t cry when Cas obligingly carries him up _four fucking flights of stairs,_ because his husband is a _God,_ there might be a few tears when he rambles on about how lucky he is that Cas was born and New Eden didn’t push him off a cliff and Dean’s council was just shitty enough to make Dean go get him but not shitty enough to say he couldn’t _keep_ him.

Cas watches him with soft, serious eyes, and then he tenderly spoons him while Dean naps and sobers up, and when Dean is more awake but mysteriously no less overwhelmed by his ridiculous, schmoopy feelings—

Cas slips out of his nightgown and presents for him, and for his birthday, he quietly asks Dean to stop wearing the sheaths.

They don’t talk about it, but Dean can tell they’re both hoping. There’s a look in Cas’s eye when Dean touches him, and maybe Dean touches him a little differently in response, conscious of the fact that this isn’t strictly just for fun, that any time, this could be the start of something new — but for the most part, nothing really changes.

At Christmas, Pamela gives them a light blue infant’s frock, and while Dean’s initial response is to puzzle over the gender of the intended recipient, color and style conflicting, as far as tradition goes, he quickly remembers that A) who gives a fuck, and B)—

“Pam, we don’t have any kids yet,” he says, looking around the room. “You sure this isn’t for someone else?”

But it’s Pamela, and when she gives them a sly look and slowly shakes her head, Dean’s heart just about bursts out of his chest.

Claire is born in the middle of the night on a rare cool day in August. The corridor outside the infirmary is packed, anyway; even Kate takes a vacation from helping manage the safe house in Gordon’s hometown, mischievously delivering tea to the expectant father in the earlier hours, just for old time’s sake. Half of them are asleep, by the time Cas’s labor begins in earnest, but when Claire’s baffled wails pierce the night some time later, the mob at the door is wide awake and eager to greet their new princess.

It’s almost dawn by the time the crowd has dispersed; Sam and Charlie are curled up in the wingback armchair they’ve dragged in, a hilarious, exhausted pile beneath a spare blanket, and Cas makes space for Dean to lean back beside him in the bed, Claire a breathtakingly tiny, sleeping bundle in his arms.

They watch her in silence, and the faint traces of distress are so jarring and unpleasant when they reach Dean’s nose, such a far cry from the abundant joy that’s permeated the entire infirmary for the last day that at first, he can’t even tell who it’s coming from.

“Sorry,” Cas says, before Dean can start sniffing in panic, and he stills.

“Sorry?” he echoes.

Cas smiles, wry, though he doesn’t look away from Claire.

“Well — it seems I’ve given you a baby girl.”

It takes Dean a long time to figure out what Cas is trying to say, and not just because he’s tired.

“Exactly,” he eventually manages to respond, chest tight. “She’s a gift.”

Cas blinks.

And then he ducks his chin, huffing a laugh.

“She is.” He smiles, wryness gone, scent sweetening again, then quietly remarks, “I love you.”

Dean kisses him, and for this gift, as for all his others, he is endlessly, overwhelmingly grateful.

The first thing Claire sees outside the infirmary is her father’s garden, just beyond the terrace balustrade, young trees already beginning to shade them from the heat.

King John has a long, somewhat serious looking conversation with her when she is three days old. Dean watches anxiously out of earshot, Cas unconcerned and possibly even _amused_ beside him, but the infant is returned to them no less gurgly or twinkly — though John is perhaps a little more of the second thing (and possibly even the first; it’s not like Dean would know) — and he decides not to worry about it.

The first item on the docket, when the council resumes session following the celebrations, is a long overdue renegotiation of inheritance laws, by order of the King.

Predictably, George is outraged by most of the suggested updates, but Tara has surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) few objections, and while there are a handful of hesitant traditionalists, accepting of a fairly harmless future queen with a penchant for dresses (especially a future queen with such a beneficial effect on their future _king_ ), but more suspicious of things like ‘female heirs’—

It’s clear that perhaps, it’s time for a change.

In the end, it’s impossible to say, what the future holds. It’s impossible to know, with any kind of certainty, what to expect from it.

But they have an idea — they have each other, and much, much more besides — and despite the lack of certainty, they know what they want, for themselves and for the people trusted to their care.

And with that in mind—

They work toward building it together.

\- end -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** SPOILERS **
> 
> Explicit Sexual Content: Dean starts touching Cas, and Cas becomes a little impatient, though he lies and assures Dean he’s happy to basically just snuggle and talk, if that’s what Dean wants. Dean can see this is not the case, but tells Cas he’s very good to him, and asks him to let Dean know if Dean ever fails to be good back. Cas insists he’s the best; Dean counters that this is a low bar. The conversation leads to Dean admitting he spent time in Cas’s room, wearing his nightgown and reading his books, and Cas expresses envy that he had nothing of Dean’s when Anna took him away. He admits to wishing Dean had bedded him, because it might have given him something of Dean’s, implying a child. Dean says that’s a little fucked up, and Cas tells him it’s just as well if they’re both fucked up, that he likes to think of them as well-suited; Dean counters that they’re perfect for each other. They make love, and Dean bites him, resulting in Cas’s orgasm; he then turns him over, asking to knot him, and when Cas agrees, Dean does so, baring for Cas to bite him in turn, which Cas does. The next scene begins with a brief conversation about them being knotted, wherein Dean comes again.

**Author's Note:**

> *** SPOILERS ***
> 
> Hurt Cas: Cas was terribly mistreated from the time he presented; due to the attempted rape incident, which no one but Anna believed him about, he was whipped badly, and now bears severe scars on his back.
> 
> Past Attempted Rape/Non-con: This is only referenced, there are no flashbacks or detailed accounts of the event. The son of a council member in Cas’s town previously attacked him. Cas fought back, won rather thoroughly, and the man accused Cas of randomly attacking him. Cas was whipped as punishment.
> 
> Dubious Consent due to third-party influence: Tara, as part of Winchester’s council, drugs Dean’s beer at a festival. It causes him to go into rut, and the guards are told to bring Cas to him, in an effort to force Dean to finally bed Cas and attempt to impregnate him. Some intimate contact occurs, though no actual sex happens; they’re both aroused, however, Dean has been drugged, and Cas doesn’t have a choice about being there, so any enjoyment of things is naturally suspect.
> 
> The Problematic Situation at Large: Cas is effectively being taken from his home with the expectation that someone is going to repeatedly assault him and force him to bear their children before exiling him to the countryside. This does **not** happen (and you can assume this tradition is tossed for good, after this), but the threat of it is a looming conflict through much of the story; his uncertain future and the way he has been viewed in New Eden and is now being viewed in Winchester are an incredible strain on his mental and emotional well-being. Despite the rules, he does end up making friends, and he maintains a garden, but he is very aware that he is basically a prisoner in the castle and at the mercy of others. If you're still unsure and want more detail, please do ask.
> 
> Dean's treatment of Cas: Dean gets it into his head that Cas's plan is to seduce and murder him as revenge for the tradition that brought him there, and that sending Cas, a physically capable and extremely attractive omega, was a strategic move on New Eden's part. In his paranoid desperation to win what he imagines to be a game between them, he is at times very cold and spiteful toward Cas, at one point complicit in his public humiliation (operating under the assumption that Cas has an agenda), and Cas suffers significantly for it. From Chapter 9 onward, Dean does his best to make up for this mistreatment, but it is perfectly understandable to find his behavior unforgivable and not want to read about this kind of relationship.
> 
> Backstories for background/side characters: The following things are implied or referenced as having happened to background/side characters who appear later on in the story: physical abuse, attempted trafficking, forced marriage, rape/non-con, exploitation, imprisonment, getting shafted by gender-biased inheritance laws (I don't know the word for that, I apologize), discrimination based on gender and marital status, infertility, abortion, racism/xenophobia, and a failure on the part of authority to enforce laws that should have protected people. If I've forgotten something, please be assured that the appropriate warnings and notes will appear in the individual chapters that reference things, and generally speaking, this story does not get into heavy detail about these things. As always, if you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask.


End file.
